Or how everything that I judged, thought and created as an experience towards art came back to haunt me.

I’ve been busy these past weeks/months rekindling my relationship with art. It is a relationship at at the moment because - as I’ve shared before - it became a source of many judgments, opinions, beliefs about who I am in relation to it, which means I ended up creating a bunch of experiences ‘towards it’ and identifying that as my posture within doing art or towards art in general - but interestingly enough, I stopped seeing myself as my art because of how I started imposing my experience towards it – as judgments, beliefs, opinions, emotions – instead of focusing on simply doing it and working with the physical outcome of it.

And this also reminds me that even if I give myself the authority and ‘green light’ to create something, I will invariably also confront all the past baggage and sort it out in the process, can’t have a clean slate by itself, I have to actually do the ‘cleaning’ process which is what I’ll share here.

I consider that making this difference is a primary point here because we tend to create an ‘experience’ towards something or someone and lose that objective view on things and start romanticizing them, just like we do with anything in our minds through energetic experiences that we end up being controlled and driven by in our lives, making decisions based on an experience, rather than objectively and consciously looking at something, assessing and then making a decision.

What I’ve been realizing is that I am facing all of that clutter of experiences, judgments, opinions, comparisons, insecurities and self-doubt that I imprinted onto ‘art creation’ over the last years, which wasn’t necessarily always the case. I started doing art as a response to wanting to express and do something for and by myself that I could solely enjoy for the visual aspect of it. I’ve called myself a ‘reformed visual vicious’ because I did get to a point of turning everything into something I could fixate on and create an experience towards, be it related to beauty or astonishment which is again me creating a relationship, an experience towards things instead of embracing what I would see as myself – take it in and breathe it out so to speak – but instead, I developed a form of romance with art which became eventually a love hate relationship where as some song goes, to ‘hate’ something you first had to ‘love’ it and love in this context wasn’t a living expression of myself towards myself at the time, but glorifying something external to myself through which I could find a sense and meaning to my life, which I now don’t really seek to find one because #IMatter, so I am the meaning of whatever it is that I am living, doing and placing my effort on.

Within seeking to do something ‘meaningful to life’ and others’ lives specifically, I disregarded myself in my own self-creation process – this became obvious in the kind of relationships I created over the years, how I placed myself in at ‘at your service’ type of stance to anything that sounded good to me and in that, well if I would have continued, a strong sense of ‘losing myself’ would have continued emerging from it. I distanced myself from doing that which in fact was challenging myself the most and that is art creation, because I linked it to self-creation and because I linked it to this whole process of transformation of who I am where my points of view have dramatically changed over the years about virtually everything, going into an extremism of sorts where my absolutism led me to the ultimate limitation: “you can’t do anything that is for your own pleasure and visual viciousness, you have to do something meaningful to life.”

But, who told me this? No one else but myself, I created my own standards and limitations, I created my own ideas of what was more ‘noble’ to do in this world according to the idea of getting to create a substantial change in this world, but how could I if the expression underlying that attempt was one of self-limitation, martyrdom, self-sacrifice, denial of what is it that I truly want to be and express? It is the truth of it really, how can I attempt to be an example to the world of what living ‘freedom’ is if all I’m trying to do is impose my principles and views on others while living in a continuous self-limitation within myself?

And that’s what I’ve been facing currently in the practical day to day process of painting. I am the creator, I have the creative ability as anyone else in this world and I set the limits, I set the boundaries, I define the shapes, the forms, the colors, the subject, the meaning, all of it – and that to me has become in my head quite a challenge in fact, which culminated in the past days going through a physical experience of pain and headaches because of all these ideas, beliefs, perceptions, judgments and opinions about what I’m doing in art again and in essence, facing my-self-creation: facing all of these reactions that I imposed into something that is part of our reality as ‘art’ and confronting myself with my self-created limitations and fears while doing it.

Well, this is the real challenge to me, to go beyond the conditionings I’ve imposed to myself in something that used to be ‘so free and careless’ to me as an experience, it was ‘my point of liberation’ yet I turned it into a masochistic experience over the years to the point of not wanting to do anything with it and now having to ‘take the dive again’ into the same pool and face the process of creating or recreating myself as these words that art used to be for myself: enjoyment, liberation, carelessness, a sense of freedom and authority to decide an outcome, a final result of something.

I ended up turning that into an uncomfortable ‘limitless’ set of possibilities. I am being challenged out of my very ‘squared’ way of living actually, where I can be a very efficient and structured oriented person when there’s a beginning and an end to a task and project that can be gauged and ‘mathematically measured’ as finished, as complete… but! I am definitely challenged when it comes to having no limits, no boundaries and having to actually push through my own fears within this notion of reinventing myself in it.

So, this is more of a realization of that ‘crisis’ that comes when we have resisted to do something for so long because of all of the reactions we had imprinted onto it and finally decide to walk through it. I don’t have a problem to get myself to ‘do something,’ but being satisfied with what I do is a whole different thing and that’s what I want to focus on here, because I have the determination, I am creating the discipline to incorporate painting – at the moment – as part of my day to day, except for this week where I’ve been mostly reflecting on all of these points, which has resulted in spending more time in my head than actually doing anything about it. But, I won’t criticize this either, because I’ve been writing and speaking with other people about this creative process which kind of opened up perspectives in me to not judge this ‘stage’ that I’m facing, to understand it as part of the process in itself and also, to practically start redirecting myself in every moment that I see there’s this limitation or ‘idea’ of what I should be doing creeping in and instead test out ways, find my way of expressing myself, without creating ideas, beliefs, perceptions of ‘what it has to be.’

I had postponed the decision to actually get to paint for months to the point where I had these lined up white canvasses in front of me without actually moving myself to make the necessary space in the place that is now my ‘workspace’ for painting and get myself in motion.

So now I’m ‘in motion’ but that was the easy part it seems… To me what has become the most challenging is the ‘who I am’ in it where a lot of doubts, uncertainties, ideas, beliefs come up in me about what looks fine and what doesn’t, what I’d like to express - but at the same time considering the painting as something that someone else will buy according to their taste and hang on their wall as something they will be having around and part of their living pace.

I consider that part of the reasons why I had decided to give up art before is because of the plethora of ‘uncomfortable places’ I found myself in while doing anything related to it, thinking more about how others will see it and then using that as a way to limit myself though projecting ideas, beliefs of how it’s going to look at the eyes of others – potential buyers of it – and if it will be ‘good enough’ for them.

Essentially what has been coming up these past days is a fear of failure, fear that no one will like them and so ending up with a stack of stuff that no one will ever pay something for. And this is then the right place to be at within my process, where there is no finite way to measure what’s ‘good or bad’, where there is only an expression that I can be satisfied with or not and getting to know such ‘zone’ within me which, I understand is existing in me, it is there as a potential but here comes also the second layer of what has been creating a sort of ‘cloud’ over my head.

I stopped doing art for several years. It used to be my ‘daily bread’ for a part of my life and then I started judging it in all possible ways as meaningless, as purposeless, as a waste of time, and in that I justified stopping doing anything related to it for quite some time, even though it always remained there in the back of my head. And this has made me in a way be regretting those decisions. These past days I’ve been in somewhat of a ‘lost zone’ within me because of being thinking too much about all the opportunities I once had in front of me related to art and I denied it all, I said ‘no thank you’ and turned my back to it, completely and in quite a righteous stance I must say. And within that, I became all the thoughts that I created towards art, only to now be in the process of having to forgive myself for all those limitations I created towards it and also letting go of ‘all that could have been’ ideas in relation to it and how I ‘think’ that I could have developed myself if I had not given up on myself in art for some time.

What comes up mostly is the perceived ‘lost time’ and this is the idea that has been running around in my head, which is now creating a sense of having to ‘rush’ to practice, to get things done now in a way trying to ‘make up for’ the past, for the ‘wrong decisions’ I believe I made, not only in relation to arts but other contexts in my life like relationships or mistakes that I’ve made for not having sufficient precaution and consideration, as well as an outflow of procrastination in relation to my professional status which I am now on the way to take responsibility for and close those ‘holes’ that I’ve left behind me.

So, within participating in all of these thoughts - which are also fueled by the lack of money, fear of not making money, fear of not ‘making sufficient money’ - I’ve caused myself quite a strain in my body these days more noticeably so, fueled by also comparing myself to what I am aware my fellow peers in art school are accomplishing in their lives and in a way seeing myself as ‘having lost my track’ or even ‘having lost my mojo’ so to speak when it comes to creativity, and in essence, being a bit too exigent on myself expecting certain outcomes or results ‘already,’ considering that with arts- and with anything really - one has to practice to get to a point of satisfaction and eventual mastery, and it is kind of obvious that if I didn’t practice for such a long time and completely disconnected from it, it’ll take some time for me to ‘get back on track’ and develop myself with it, which means I have to change my current approach stemming from fears, judgments, limitations, regret and in a way yes even if subtle frustration that if I would continue to allow as ‘my experience’ would lead me to ‘give up’ because that’s apparently the easy way out in our minds, which I am aware I won’t do as a conscious decision, but still, I lay out that potential outflow if I don’t actually take a self-responsible action in what I am experiencing.

So this takes me to seeing ‘who am I’ when I am in front of a canvas to paint? All that exists is the idea of having to do something that can be liked by others and this is the challenging spot for me, where I can create a balance between expressing myself, representing myself while also at the same time considering others without going into the point of compromise. And to understand where and how I would compromise myself in something as ‘subjective’ for a lack of a better word as art is not an easy task, but I am willing to find my way in it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to regret the choices I made in my life before in having created a load of judgments about art in order to justify stopping doing anything related to it instead of seeing that at the time that’s who I was, that’s where I was in my life and that even if I could ‘go back in time,’ I would still be ‘me’ at the time making those decisions that I was quite certain of at the moment. Therefore this is where I have to own my creation, to see nothing and no one as the ‘culprit’ for me desisting on this creative path but myself and so that means I can place myself back on track on it as I can now decide to test out this route and see how I can develop myself on it and so continuing to see what I learn and discover of myself that I had ‘given up’ to before.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be deciding to create art from a starting point of fearing failing, fear of survival where then all that becomes is me living as ‘fear of survival’ while painting or doing anything related to arts within which I create a pressure in me that eventually takes a toll on my body and gets to the point where it becomes unbearable to do anything, because my head and body physically gets drained every time that I am seeing through the eyes of fear at what I’m about to create or in the process of creating, therefore

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to live trust, consideration and patience within the process of creating something new, where I am instead trying to ‘achieve’ something in a short period of time within a starting point of ‘need to produce more and more’ and in that, not seeing that who I am and what my expression itself is existing as is fear of failure, fear of not having these pieces being liked and bought and therefore having other fears in the background having to do with survival and sorting out other consequences that I’ve also created in my life and that I have to attend as well.

I realize that existing in that ‘survival’ mode while creating something won’t lead me anywhere but creating further stress and pressure on my body, which I actually need to be at ease and in an equilibrium in order to create.

I also consider that I have contaminated my expression a lot based on adding this dimension of ‘potentially selling’ something where I haven’t equalized myself to that possibility and outflow of creating art and instead, have turned it into this murky experience that I believe I have to be at all times considering in order to satisfy a potential buyer’s taste.

If I look back at how I started doing art – and the reason why I also decided to go back to it – is because It was one of the points I took on for myself as a decision I made and lived up to the point of choosing it to be my career, which I then regretted, which I now not regret, and this is the kind of ‘change of mind’ that in my mind and system seems unreliable, untrustworthy, believing I ‘cannot change my mind about something like that, I moved on and that means moving on!’ but I have had to also face the absolutist in me and be humble enough to ‘eat my words’ and rather understand them within the timeframe and context I was in.

It is quite interesting though how righteousness veiled my stance towards arts, believing that what I was thinking, judging and creating as opinions within me were ‘right’ and ‘justified’ and it only makes sense that now I am facing my own ‘bullets firing back at me’ so, yep! I did it to myself and it’s a great way for me to realize what owning one’s creation is, it’s nothing glorious but sometimes it will be as uncomfortable as what I am describing here.

So, how I see it is that unless I clear my relationship with art in all the minute reactions that come up as I am doing it, I’ll continue compounding this experience within me, because as with anything: we are the words that we live, we become what we think, act or don’t act on – therefore if I am constantly churning these experiences of feeling inadequate, incompetent, out of practice, having ‘lost my mojo’ then I will only continue tampering the actual practical process it will take to get back on track within it again and see how I can develop myself currently in it.

I also have to make peace with the fact that yes, that time where I didn’t get to do anything related to art is the same as when one used to exercise every day and stops for several years and one suddenly wants to ‘get back at it,’ I cannot expect my body to respond exactly the same as it was when doing it on a constant basis and I’ve proven this to myself also with exercise even with two or three weeks of not getting to it, takes some time to ‘get back on track’ and readjust.

So, I consider that as much as I’ve been trying to get comfortable with starting over, painting over what I consider as ‘not good enough,’ I also have to stop trying to ‘achieve’ something ideal in my mind, because it only creates a pressure that then becomes a compounded reaction that gets to eventually become more of a physical pain to sort out that prevents me from painting or doing anything related to arts.

I also have to stop judging all of these points as petty points as well, considering how for many it would be a luxury to be dedicating myself to what I am now taking on again as a career path – however, can’t compare myself that way, nor try and compare myself with the idea of what I believe ‘I should be doing by now’ and instead be realistic and humble about the fact that as much as I may have had some practice before, at the moment it will require some time to develop the skills again, to rediscover them if anything through practice over time. I am aware I am dedicated, and I can spend time on it without a problem, so working on something is not the problem – this is about my self-expression and breaking through the multiple self-imposed barriers I’ve created in my mind towards or ‘within’ the creative act and finding the equilibrium to create something that I am satisfied with and at the same time becomes a source of income.

I have to also let go of the ideas of comparing my stuff with what I see some of my peers doing because I am quite aware that becomes also a recipe for disaster if I then create an idea of what ‘I should be doing’ instead of working with what’s here, what I can do, express and work on developing and be OK with the process it will take in this case to develop the skills, because that’s an actual practice that takes time and diligence to it.

What can be immediate though is me living words that are supportive like patience to develop a consistent practice yet not expect ‘excellent results’ right away or ‘master pieces’ type of ideas, because that becomes also an underlying pressure that I am trying to achieve which ends up causing more of a wreck within me than being of any support, therefore I have to Let Go of those ideals and even letting go of seeking that ultimate ‘good outcome’ that I believe I should be aspiring to create – because this becomes also something I am ‘thinking’ about in my head, instead of rather focusing directly on what’s in front of me to work with and express myself as, which is what I consider I haven’t fully aligned within me, all related to notions of ‘good enough’/ ‘not good enough’ and the subtle frustration that comes in me when realizing I’m not ‘fully being myself.’

Doing art is quite the perfect challenge for me to focus on, because there’s nothing else that triggers so many points for me to face by myself, alone, with my literal creation than this. I’ve tested various things and I’m usually ‘good’ at getting things done and taking responsibilities, doing tasks from a to b, but anything that exists within an actual ‘open possibility for anything’ it becomes a challenging task for me, as much as there is an enjoyment in it at the same time I end up clouding it with my ideas, expectations, beliefs, judgments that for sure then become ‘what I express’ in a very literal and visible manner.

One thing I’ve been more ok with is making mistakes. Before I would not dare to start over again or paint over something, I have been more accepting of that rather than giving up completely on it and not working on it for years as I’ve done before.

Also the point of ‘I matter’ works quite well for this process as well, where I have to yes, consider others, what the purpose of this creation is for, but at the same time to do it for myself, not ‘for others’ in my mind constantly or the ‘potentials’ for this or that creation – I have to first and foremost find out again what it is to express something that represents me, is me as who I currently am and I consider that with that, the rest becomes by default an easier point to approach, because then I am trusting myself in it/as it, which are cool words and platforms to start from.

The rest is entirely up to me, where I can translate these words in forms, ways, trying out things that I haven’t done before and be ok with taking those risks and experimenting and seeing ‘what comes out of it’ without trying to control such outcome in one way or another. I have to be fully embracing me in this and stop torturing myself with thoughts of ‘I should not have stopped doing this, I should not have left this behind, I should not have made that choice, I should not have listened to this/that commentary’ Because what’s done is done, and can’t turn back time, but can only work with what’s currently here in my reality from now on.

At the same time, I also have to be flexible and see what outcomes I create, where I don’t create an absolutism of ‘this is the only thing I’ll fully dedicate myself to from now on’ and take on the absolutist stance in that and closing any other potential ways, doors that could open up as well. This is in a way also assisting in realizing that my whole life doesn’t ‘only’ depend on this, yet at the same time considering there is a potential to work on and be patient and diligent with it too, so that I can embrace myself, my creations and be more carefree with it as I used to be within it, which was the actual source of enjoying my expression in art, ‘boundless’ in a way and realm of possibilities this implies.

I am glad I am embarking myself on this path again, because as much as I ‘separated’ myself from it with a cloud of judgments, it is something that never ceased to be in the back of my head, I just denied it and judged it and told me ‘don’t go there,’ but why deny it any longer? I see how supportive it is to transcend these judgments and actually get to do what in a way has been a constant in my life, very present at times, some other times in the back of my head as a suppressed potential, and now I placed it back on the board for myself. I definitely have to also let go of the idea that I’ve wasted ‘precious years’ for it, because this is also not about ‘time’ entirely, but about what I decide to live and do in this moment and from now on, as myself, as my expression and not judge or compare myself within it based on ‘what I could have achieved by now’ in a parallel universe of having continued doing it without interruption.

So, that’s what I’ll be focusing on while also not creating an absolutism about it and being ‘only driven by’ certain desires to fulfill with it, but discover what it means to express myself as it/in it completely… and there’s only a way to find out: By actually doing it, not thinking of it.

I suggest checking out these audios on Eqafe.com that are assisting to see how we create this absolutism in our minds and establish ways to investigate where we are being one and so limiting ourselves in our creative authority and capacity:

My Life of Absolutism - Life Review
My Life of Absolutism (Part 2) - Life Review
Hitting a Wall

Or reflecting on the nature of absolutism and how to learn from others to transform it into a supportive expression

I had a laugh with myself while listening to this audio here My Life of Absolutism (Part 3) - Life Review because I tend to do so when something or someone reflects me back to myself in such an accurate way, and it also can be a temporary way to cope with the blunt image of myself through someone else’s words to then take it through an actual assimilation of what that description of this person as being an ‘absolutist’ means and the consequences it created in his life. I could see myself in his shoes and even wondered that if I had been a male, I would have probably taken it even one step further just like he did towards people.

An interesting thing that has also been quite present for the past month or so is my relationship with people that to me represent the opposite of ‘absolutism,’ people that are more ‘free flowing’ or have learned to stand in the system yet ‘twist it from within’ and not in an antagonistic manner, but more like being able to stand within it/as it and change it from within or assist in reflecting back the nature of the system in a fun way evidencing that there is something we have to change about it within ourselves.

I’m talking about artists for the most part and how there are times when I create specific ‘fixations’ towards certain artists/people/individuals that appear ‘attractive’ to me but not in a physical attraction mode only, but more in the sense of looking at the words they rare living and expressing in how they live/who they are, at least in anything that I have access to at the moment.

I noticed that I created this same experience towards an artist called Morten Traavik, who to me initially appeared to be quite the ‘absolutist’ kind, very frank, direct, diplomatic yet almost ‘militant’ in how he approaches things but not within the context of aligning to ‘how things are’ but in the context of transgressing the system, without opposing it but ‘hacking it from within’ with a lot of finesse so to speak. He’s managed to create artistic projects with North Korea who are supposed to be this very closed-up and censoring nation, and has managed to create artistic events between his country Norway and North Korea, all of it through him creating relationships of trust over time with the people there. He said something quite interesting in one of his talks “if real dialogue is what you want, then you have to be prepared to learn from people you don't like” and

“If you really want to test your own limits of tolerance and to try something new and something fresh, deal with somebody you would not like to deal with”

A lot of what absolutism represents to me is a unilateral perspective on what I’ve believed is ‘my way’ as ‘the right way’ and ‘how things have to be’ where I’ve invariably created a counter-part that I’ve then by default defined as ‘the opposite’ of everything I’ve stood for, and I didn’t realize how I was ‘by default’ again creating this separation by becoming absolutist in my ways.

The reason why I didn’t question this before is because I judged the things I stood for as ‘the right ones’ as the ‘noble ones’ and the principles that ‘everyone should stand by and live for’ which made it difficult for me to realize how I was in fact at the same time becoming rigid, unilateral, constricted and limited within such militant stance - not that the word ‘militant’ is ‘bad’ either because I found there is a way to live it without the ‘absolutism’ in it, which at the same time leads me to say that it’s not that absolutism cannot be redefined either, both words can be lived in a supportive manner which I’ll get to explain later on.

So, what does that ‘attraction’ represented to me in this time of my life? And I have to here outline that it’s not the usual kind of attraction as it’s usually experienced, but it’s more of a curiosity to want to know more about the person, how they got to be ‘who they are’ and express/live the way they do, which to me is a representation of self-trust through having had a lot of experiences of ‘going for it’ to create things and finding out what works, what doesn’t work, but overall Daring to do so, which is something I’ve been writing about. But I find it very useful to take on examples from other people living certain words in their lives to see how they ‘got to do so’ in practical terms. That’s how I’ve transformed a merely superficial experience of ‘attraction’ into actually getting to see what words that person that I am creating this experience towards is living that I can integrate and live for myself as well.

I wanted to share about Morten because in the way that he works and how he relates to people, he’s quite political in nature and I can see myself having similar stance and ways, yet he is not standing within the ‘current system’ of politics as is, but has taken his current position from within the system to hack it, to use it to expand its horizons, to expose it, to transgress it and to me that is quite innovative and takes a lot of guts.

I would very much like to do something like that, maybe not in ‘the same way’ he’s managed to do at those political and diplomatic levels, but in my own context and current living situation, while also considering potentials for the future in it.

I got to know of him through watching the Laibach documentary going to play in North Korea called ‘Liberation Day’ which I definitely enjoyed, more so from the perspective of what this whole event represents ‘for the world’ in politics and culture and seeing the role that the film’s director had in it all, which is Morten in this case.

The band in itself represents an artistic mirror for fascism by becoming it, not going ‘against it’ but fully embodying it to then make art within/as it and expose it to itself. I consider that’s been quite a unique way of doing art and that’s how I’ve also looked at words like absolutism and militant which somehow I can resonate with a lot, but not within the context of the actual control they imply to limit, to exist in fear, to dictate, but more as expressions I can use to stand as that resolve, that rotund expression of life, of ‘this is who I am and what I stand for’ without standing ‘against’ anything or anyone, but learning to embrace and be flexible in it all at the same time, which may sound contradictory in theory, but that’s where the challenge begins, to stop seeing things ‘black or white’ and instead live words, aspects of words, what’s best for the words within a supportive starting point. It’s like learning to transcend those limitations created through those words/concepts by using them at the same time. I can live those words in a supportive manner as well.

What this artist represents to me is the courage to do what no one else would have maybe dared to do, to transcend limits that have been imposed through politics and cultural definitions and directly work with the people, establishing relationships with ‘the unthinkable’ which is represented in the quotes I placed from him above.

To me those are key words because I’ve become so used to ‘follow my own lines’ that I know I am limiting myself in my self-creation process if I only think in those ‘usual terms’ and that’s definitely the challenge here for me: to step out of ‘myself’ and see reality with a different pair of eyes, which means, stopping living in an absolutist manner where I think that ‘where I am and how I am is the right way and with the right principles and there’s nothing else to look at discovering or changing’ which of course also makes my life boring, because I am creating my own stagnation if I don’t dare to challenge even those tenets that I believe are ‘who I am and will always be’ by now… now that’s really pushing the envelope to me and even writing about it a little bit of an experience wants to emerge in the sense of saying ‘”Nooo! you can’t do that!” But who decides, really, who’s the real policeman in my head?

I have learned from innovative and ‘ahead of our time’ people – mostly artists – that in order to get anywhere, one has to dare to do things that would have been conceived as impossible or ‘out of the norm’ or ‘going against the tide’ by most - but without the antagonism in itself, because it’s not about fighting the system, not about just criticizing it – but having the cunning ways and skills to be entirely and fully into it to step into that self-authority of being in it but not of it, which is what I’ve seen Morten has managed to do with his art and projects, getting to speak to certain ‘authorities’ in events about politics and culture and stand in the podium and make everyone question if the term ‘cultural diplomacy’ is in fact a paradox lol – that’s the kind of people that from my perspective we all need in all areas/spheres of our lives and this world, daring to have some guts to stand in those ‘echelons’ and speak things as they are, and that involves some words like courage, understanding, confidence, self-trust, frankness to express that, without holding his own views as ‘the right ones’ but in fact mentioning the importance of learning from each other for growth and expansion – his own words there.

I’ve never stopped referencing people that I’ve come to ‘admire’ or ‘be attracted to’ in order to see what words are they living that I can integrate into my own life and live it as myself. And most of them are artists or creative people in the formal sense of the world, which confirms that I am at the right place in what I choose to continue forming myself as and being within the realm of arts, and understanding art as self-creation from the individual to the existential sense, and I am rather grateful there are human beings I get to know and have relationships with that have challenged myself over the years to step out of my own cocoon, because every time it has pushed me to see life differently.

I’d find it very difficult if not impossible to do that if I was ‘a man living on an island’ so to speak, being alone and this is when I am grateful for every person that dares to put themselves out there, their creations, their experiences that I can reference and learn from, be it through artistic expressions like arts, music, films, documentaries or sharing their own writings in walking through their minds and day to day experience. To me that’s one way where I go opening myself up from this absolutism and rigid ways in which I’ve come to exist and go embracing more ways, more perspectives that can assist me to expand, grow and develop myself to where I definitely want to be living in and expressing as in my life, which I have no finite or settled outcome for, because I will precisely be flexible in testing out various ways while having a ‘settled direction’ which is to support myself, to push my own limits, to find out ‘who I am’ in my decisions and choices, learn from mistakes and live life that way in the best way I can create for me and so for others at the same time – no longer having this finite ‘idea’ about myself or ‘who I should be’ because that is absolutist in nature, it is restrictive – but have an open floor from which I can allow myself to flow with it, to learn to trust myself in it, to dare to do things, to not ‘fear’ and be scared of stepping out of my eggshell and really live life without fear, because that’s the point that absolutism represents to me ultimately, a dimension of fear as control that I ultimately have to let go of in order to really grow.

What does living in an absolutist and militant manner mean to me currently? Being absolute in my resolution, self-trust and capacity to walk through/ live through something and find who I am in it, in a holistic way – not half-assed, but testing out something fully, to live fully in a way which can only be done from my perspective if letting go of fear. To persevere, to stick to what I plan on doing, to be focused and determined in creating something and getting to see the result of it as my creation and be responsible in it, to own it as ‘my creation’ for the better or to learn from it as a mistake. To be efficient and patient at the same time acknowledging the work and dedication anything in this creation requires, so that’s a way in which I can be absolute and militant in my stance, without the morals, the fears, the judgments and self-imposed limitations I had lived as before.

And how do I eventually walk out of this ‘fixation’ towards a particular person? Once that I start living those words/aspects I see them living and integrate them into my own life, so, that’s what I’ll do from here on within my own life, living context and capacity.

Thanks for reading and, definitely have a listen to these supportive audios to reflect back on one’s own absolutism and so see where and how one can start creating the first steps to expand and grow out from it into a supportive manner.

My Life of Absolutism - Life Review
My Life of Absolutism (Part 2) - Life Review
My Life of Absolutism (Part 3) - Life Review

Or sharing some of the process involved in giving myself authority to create the new version of me that I can be proud of living in

Something that I’ve become aware of is a hindrance to creating the new within us is keeping ourselves captive to our own words, thoughts, emotions, feelings as memories of ‘who we have been’ and believing that we don’t have the authority to step out of that and create for ourselves a fresh start every day. As simple as it might sound, it seems that we create our own limitations based on ‘who we have been’ and ‘how we’ve always done things’ and ‘how we’ve always behaved’ and believe that there’s no way around this, that this is ‘it’ and we have to carry our burdens for a lifetime. That’s definitely not so.

I’ve discovered through walking this process with Desteni that I have been able to reinvent myself and slowly but surely give myself the authority to actually become the person I many times envisioned I would ‘like to be’ but, somehow in my mind, had believed ‘I didn’t have it in me’ to become the kind of person I would mostly admire when it comes to women or be attracted to when it comes to males, because that’s the way that I was identifying all the aspects/words/potentials that I saw others living in their lives. Yet at the same time, I would think of myself as ‘not having what it takes’ to ‘pull that off’ so to speak… who decides? I was, in my mind existing in fears, ideas, limitations, thinking what will ‘others say about this/that,’ ‘that would be so out of character for me to do’ and all other kinds of ideas, beliefs and justifications adorning fears to actually give myself an opportunity to reinvent myself, to create myself anew.

This sounds like a ‘transcendental’ process in fact and it might be to a certain extent, but it isn’t really something that complex when one realizes the ability we have to ‘step out of the preprogrammed ways’ in every moment of our lives, it is as simple as that, we just sometimes or ‘usually’ fear ‘the unknown’ that comes with it instead of realizing that we can trust ourselves to become the new, test it out, live it out and see if it is in fact supportive and beneficial for oneself or not and go back to the drawing board to test out something different instead.

I was chatting with a friend yesterday and we were talking about our past as ‘the Grinch kind of people’ that would be ‘anti’ everything: anti-capitalists, anti-consumerism, anti-social, anti-government, anti-politics and the rest of it, which was interesting to see how much we could relate to seeing how many doors we closed in our lives because of standing in such position of ‘this is who I am, it is the right way, it is the just way/the right way and whatever I say will help you to wake up!’ which interestingly enough he also mentioned this could have assisted some to ‘open eyes’ to investigate reality – which surely, can be so to a certain extent – but I also shared how in my process, I had to ask myself ‘who am I’ within such stance/what’s my starting point in it within such criticism and ‘awakened’ type of mentality I was carrying as myself, and how I had found a lot of antagonism, criticism, rebelliousness, superiority, righteousness and in essence creating a ‘fight against the world’ that led me to become a misanthrope at times, which all comes from an arrogant superiority believing myself to be ‘corrected’ already, instead of seeing that I was still then being part of the problem, being only criticizing, judging but not really proposing any ways to change things, starting within myself.

“How did you manage to change?” he asked and I shared that it was part of this same process of self-support with Desteni, getting to understand my responsibility to it all to no longer stand ‘against’ everything and everyone, but to apply understanding, to rather find ways to better relate to each other, to find the common ground even in our plethora of disparities and opinions/judgments/beliefs and all of those things that have come to separate us even if they only exist in our minds.

That’s how I shared that even though I had focused a lot on possible changes at a political and economic level, the ball kept falling back again and again on the front of individual self-change, and how the nature of the system is nothing else but the nature of the relationships we have forged ‘against’ – currently – one another, and how with people taking responsibility for that self-change first, then the idea of a ‘new system’ becomes more plausible. He agreed with that, even though in his own path he’s also contributing within the economic realm at a local level, he considered again how relevant it is for us to yes, be informed, educate ourselves about the nature of the systems, the potential solutions and the rest of it – but not to forget about that inner/self-change, a change of mind, a change of consciousness so to speak which to him is more in the sense of ‘getting more in touch with yourself’ which surely is a growing trend I’d say, and it’s great in whichever ways people find it supportive.

There’s this song that starts saying ‘to change the world is to change personal perspective’ and it is so, I’ve been seeing for myself what it is to stop seeing the eyes through the ‘giving up on myself/humanity’ eyes where everything seemed gloomy, dismal, pointless, depressed, angry, antagonistic… because I was projecting my own experience onto everyone else and I wasn’t even aware of it. Whereas now through having walked my own experiences related to only seeing ‘the bad’ in the world, all the problems, all that’s ‘out of place’ according to me, the actual change emerged when I was able to give myself this openness, this opportunity to change me, to breakthrough, to create myself ‘anew’, to create and work on my potential and to stop holding myself as a victim to my own past, but instead embrace the potentials I can forge in my life.

This is also why self-forgiveness comes into play as a key tool to do this, because no one will give us this permission, no one else will give us ‘the green light’ we keep waiting for, but ourselves. We have to stand as that authority itself. I’ve been testing this out for myself and breaking my own ‘oaths’ that I thought I could not ever step back from in my absolutist mindset. Like saying ‘I will shave my head for the rest of my life’ and breaking that set of words that to me was something I had to stick to because ‘I said so and I cannot backup from that!’ and in that become an absolutist by my own will, instead of being self-honest about what would be most practical and ‘normal’ thing to do for me… that was a huge part of creating this new phase within me as well, of letting go of my own dictatorship and break my own rules so to speak, to decide to ‘create the next phase’ of self-creation and no one else was going to do it for me! I had to decide and do it for myself.

The same with saying ‘I won’t ever do this/that,’ well I’ve found myself doing it and testing who I am within it and then assess what is best for me or not, but no longer create an ‘unbreakable’ idea of myself that became so rigid, so authoritarian and absolutist that became my own invisible cage in which I thought I was comfortably living in. Might be a point of a comfort zone indeed, there’s a false sense of security when sticking to ‘the good old’ apparently, but I’ve found that this is a great lie we tell ourselves. With time this becomes a hindrance, a great limitation and a great source of bitterness and dissatisfaction because deep within ourselves we are aware we could live in an enjoyable manner, we could do things differently, we could Live differently altogether and be the way that we ‘dreamed’ ourselves of living as, and when we don’t dare to do it, we go day by day cementing all the reasons, justifications, fears and excuses of why we apparently ‘can’t do it’ – that’s the illusion to break through, to push through and give ourselves that creative authority to create the new.

So, to answer to my friend, I said that the most significant change emerged when I changed within myself and so started seeing people/humanity/the world and its potential. This was not such an ‘easy’ thing to do initially due to how ingrained all of my personalities, perspectives, ‘ways of being’ were all attached to me holding this defeatism as myself and so projecting it towards the world, to the point of having preferred everything to just ‘be gone’ in one moment than me giving myself a chance to see and work with the potentials, which is what I am focusing on now. Also, making it simple, not trying to engulf the whole world in my own hands and try and do ‘everything’ or try to ‘change the world out there’ - but take my own life, walk through my own limitations, expand myself and what I’ve been ‘doing’ and going breaking my own barriers that way, little by little, one step at a time as it is said.

The benefits of doing this for myself is the definition of actual freedom, which is interestingly enough related to push through wanting to ‘go through the easy way out’ or through ‘the route of less effort’ and instead, see the benefits that come with actually dedicating ourselves to get to know who we are, seeing our flaws, our problems, our ‘weaknesses’ and start deciding and working on how can we start changing all of those aspects that we dislike about ourselves that are holding us captive to a decadent past.

There are many ways to do this, I can only speak of and recommend the one that I’ve walked and continue applying in my day to day living, which is the Desteni I Process and the community of support that we are all as Desteni, supporting, sharing, learning from each other to expand and grow together as years go by, to walk this process that -even if being apart by long distances - know that we got each other to share what we go through, to assist each other in understanding the practical ways to walk through this, because let’s be honest: doing this process of change is not a ‘common thing’ in this world as of yet - it’s sort of getting there but not yet - so being part of a supportive community makes a complete difference to it, in essence, you know you’re not alone in doing it no matter how ‘far’ we are from each other and that’s comforting as well, a sense of brotherhood is created and knowing that from the ‘few’ we might be right now, there are the many to awaken to this potential in all of us and join in, in whichever way or form they decide to do so. It’s happening, this is the new way of living, and we are the only ones that can decide to start doing so for ourselves.

Thanks for reading.

And! Watch this hangout that I had with Garb as well, it was very cool to share our perspectives on redefining and living words, all of it based on the great source of support that Eqafe.com is

Or facing ‘awkwardness’ as a result of having judged everything that I am now testing to integrate in my life – joke is on me! Lol

One thing that is constant within a process of change is adapting to the ‘new version of me’ where it’s kind of like making space for ‘the new’ to be created in my life and this can range from changing perspectives to changing habits, behaviors, ways of looking at things, ways of perceiving reality, ways of interacting with others, ways in which I decide to experience myself… and one thing that I had kind of forgotten about is the initial ‘discomfort’ or ‘awkwardness’ that emerges within oneself when one is first deciding to change something or implement something ‘new’ in our lives.

I was talking to someone that I support in their own process of self-change today and it reminded me a lot of how I used to go through the same kind of judgments that he’s going through when it comes to identifying the points of change and even while considering what words it would take him to live to change such old habits into the new version of himself - that he actually wants to express and live as – he starts feeling somewhat ‘fake’ in doing so, not ‘authentic’ and I can relate a lot to that, especially with some of us people that have ‘engraved’ our personalities as these ultimate and unchangeable statements of ‘who we are’ and believing ‘we should and cannot change those parts of ourselves, no matter how constructive the reason might be, which of course becomes the most limiting thing to ever hold on to.

This reminded me of the saying ‘fake it till you make it’ which was a somewhat common thing to read and hear at the beginning of my process of understanding who I am as my mind and so taking on the process of self-change, but I never really understood it when it came to ‘faking something,’ but today it became a lot clearer how there is definitely this ‘transitional phase’ where one has to actually step out of the old and into the new and that leap that one decides to take on isn’t at all a ‘walk in the park’ for many, and I guess it all depends on many variables and individual contexts, but I certainly can share about my own.

I had tended to judge anything that was too positive, too bright, too ‘shiny and happy’ so to speak as something that was unrealistic, something fake, something that was covering up the ‘deep ugly truth’ behind the shiny façade and so I lived in this kind of judgment for most of my life actually, essentially creating a set of ‘immovable’ judgments towards anything that I decided was not ‘real’ and was ‘too good to be true’ apparently, which led me to then of course create – accept and allow – the exact opposite as ‘who I am’ and how I decide to think, be, live and interact with in relation to myself, the way I would think and perceive things, the relationships I’d create and the kind of personalities, words, thoughts, experiences I’d develop as ‘who I am’ in general.

When I made a clearer decision to actually start changing this very ingrained personality and starting to take those first steps out of the ‘old’ as all that comfort in gloominess personality in me and starting to embrace or integrate a more joyful, affable, open or happy way of being and expressing, I completely felt like a fake, because! I was experiencing the judgments that I had created and imposed towards everything that I had in fact denied myself to be, live and experience as ‘who I am,’ even if that meant having actually a more settled, grounded, enjoyable life and expression – instead of living in constant judgment and denial of that which I discovered I genuinely enjoy!

It felt so awkward to in essence open up myself to ‘the joy of life and living’ so to speak, which by the way didn’t happen that ‘long ago’ to be honest, even if I had been very busy with suggesting ways to create a change in the world, deep down within myself I was still sort of refusing to give up my own gloom and doom, which was in turn reflected in the very detail of how I would approach – read judge – anything that seemed too happy, too joyful, too ‘lively’, too colorful even – and oh boy am I facing this last one currently lol – and what ended up happening is that I became subject to my own judgments when I decided to stop this character/personality in me and bit by bit, slowly but surely start shedding this ‘past’ personality within me that was existing in a denial and continuous judgment to the actual potential and expansion that life can be lived in.

Why was that? In a way I had created a false sense of comfort – just like any other personality - in things not ever going ‘that quite right’ and so always having something to worry about, something to be emotional about… which becomes another energy-addiction where I was criticizing ‘positive thinkers’ for example, without realizing I was living exactly the same way but in its polarity in fact. That’s also how I realized that as much as I was apparently criticizing others for being ‘into the light and love’ I was in fact doing the exact same just in the opposite end, not that it meant ‘hatred and darkness’ in such ‘opposite way’ lol, but close enough to seeing everything as futile, without solutions, believing that life was never ever meant to be ‘lived happily’ but simply made ‘justice’ of and even if I knew this potential of living a ‘good and happy life’ is common sense – and is what most people aspired to, including myself at a theoretical level – I could not even fathom myself and my actual happiness or how that could be genuinely lived because I was existing in so many judgments and denial of such possibility in my life that even in moments where I was in environments where it was genuinely a supportive environment all around, I didn’t feel ‘quite right’ in it all, it felt ‘too awkward’ lol, because of it being ‘too good, too positive’ for me at that stage in my life, which meant I had to face some more years of self-denial until I decided to step out of my gloomy cocoon for once and for all – or being in the continuous process of doing this in my case.

Well, what I had to do is to actually walk through and debunk all of my judgments towards all of these living potentials that surely can be identified as ‘positive’ but that’s also another point. I decided to no longer see them as ‘positive,’ as an experience only, but rather look into the substance, the expression that I decide to live and express because I see this is what’s actually best for me and so for everyone else - instead of holding myself back or ‘down’ based on a personality that I actually had quite a bit of a ‘hold’ to, based on what I believed ‘I should be like’ which yes, would still be very rigid and ‘unchangeable’ in spite of me agreeing with certain notions of what would be an actual happy, free and loving world… I still deep down within me denied those same things to be experienced in my life…. Until fairly recently.

So! In my discussion with this guy, I realized how I had gone through the exact same ‘awkwardness’ of embracing this ‘new me’ and actually still am because I’m kind of shedding an old skin here and it’s definitely a day by day process of identifying the judgment and walking through it practically.

A point where I’m facing this the most for example is embracing colorfulness and ‘bright lights’ when it comes to painting, I cannot describe how ingrained it is within me to tend to end up darkening everything to the point of barely being able to see a thing… I’ve been ‘struggling’ with that a bit but I know exactly what those thoughts are when it comes to placing some thick layer of pure – unobscured color – such as: ‘that’s too bright, that’s too colorful, shade it down, it’s too lively, that wouldn’t be you!’ and this last bit right here: ‘that wouldn’t be you!’ is the one point that kicks me back into my judgmental ass and in a moment there I am, again going for the darker tones….. only to then now having to be adding light as a way to step out of my pattern again, and it’s not the ‘best result’ either according to my yes ‘current’ judgment, but I see it as a way to go breaking through and also learning what happens when I follow those thoughts of ‘oh that would not be you!’ or ‘that’s too bright/too happy!’ and actually go daring more with stepping out of my old patterns. It becomes awkward, because of all those judgments rushing back at me… lol, hence ‘the joke is on me’ because I never thought of myself being doing that which I had almost ‘resigned’ to ever do again.

It does feel at times like cringing inside myself whenever I’ve had to go implementing these sort of changes in various areas of my life, I’ve felt fake, felt ‘not me’, felt like I was being a ‘hypocrite’ because I was then now trying to be and express that which I had always judged as ‘too fake, too happy, too positive, too good to be true’ but! It’s actually quite cool and ‘the place to be in’ when it comes to actually changing, because I’m facing the totality of myself, my creation as my judgments and having to walk through them in order to now give myself the creative authority and freedom to be, live and express the way that I see is ‘here’ as myself, that I want to now live and develop as my expression.

This example can be expanded to anything else where changing becomes an experience of ‘doing things out of character’ which yes! It is exactly what it is all about, it is about shedding the old and into the new, while being aware that yes, there is that phase of adaptation, of shedding, of trying new things, testing out ways, finding what ‘works’ for us in many ways, that is a process, for sure. Yet this is already a doing, taking a step forward, a decision to ‘step into the unknown’ which to many of us might seem ‘too risky’ or ‘too uncertain’ but, something is quite clear to me by now: we have to give ourselves that power/ability to reinvent ourselves, and this is precisely what I’ve found supportive to remind myself of whenever I get this ‘awkwardness’ within changing these aspects within and without of me.

The ‘awkwardness’ is nothing else but the result of my own judgments staring back at me, I see my own mirror/my-error of what I built, created and participated on before when believing that I had the right to judge, to criticize and diminish anything that I defined as ‘wrong’ essentially – still a morality point - and it’s quite ludicrous because I was actually imposing this to what life is about currently for me – of course considering its ‘ups and downs’ - but I’ve learned to also focus on the potentials, the enjoyment, the growth, the expansion, taking risks, taking opportunities… I guess I’ve been writing a lot about this kind of stuff as of late, but that’s what I’m set on and can only share about the bits of discomforts experienced in doing so, embracing the ‘newness’ so to speak and letting go of my judgment to it all as ‘too good to be true’ or ‘too fake’ because we decide who we are in what we express, we give ourselves the authority/authorship in what we create and who we are within it.

That’s the key within this all as well; it’s not so much about ‘what’ we do but WHO we are within it. Ultimately it’s not really about colors or brightness, lightness or darkness, it’s about what we decide to express as ourselves, without judgments, but purely through the physical expression and in whichever form, shape or color this comes through. That’s how I’m currently facing the process of going to the ‘extremes’ and testing my ground in it, lol, which is kind of fun when looking back at it but I surely have faced times of ‘this isn’t working at all’ but don’t get to that point of giving up on it any longer, I just recognize this ‘awkward and uncomfortable experience’ for what it is: a transitional experience while I go practicing, testing out, weaving this new me for now… I mean who knows how many ‘new me’s’ I’ll ever create! Reinvention is quite a relevant word for me these days and it’s not so ‘easy’ for someone like me that lived through judgment/as judgment towards myself, anything and everyone. So, yep, I’m where I’m supposed to be to ‘face my music’ and stand up from it.

I’ll share back how it goes but so far, have had to stop my own train of thoughts according to some of the paintings I’ve done and their nature, and their purpose and instead, give myself the opportunity to rather decide ‘who I am’ in it and the expression within me while creating an image, rather than being defined by the shape of the image itself – not entirely easy at first but, getting there and I’ve discovered this is actually the me that I want to live and express, the one that steps out of ‘my own mold’ into something new… it becomes a bit more of an adventure to live this way as well.

Or how I’ve walked through consequences of feeling ‘lonely’ and how I would create relationships from that starting point to where I currently am in transforming such emotional experience into an appreciation, understanding and embracing of myself and others as equals.

I’ve been reflecting on several things these past days and one thing that I want to share about is realizing how I’ve accepted and allowed to ‘give into’ a point of comfort and in a way ‘settling for the least’ in the past in order to stand in a point of perceived or believed ‘security’, of having ‘no-conflict’, of having certain apparent ‘control’ over someone or a situation and how that has eventually led me to create what I feared happening as the starting point of ‘who I am in my creation,’ which might seem like something ‘shitty’ to happen in one’s life, but as I share my story, it’s actually gotten me or ‘forced me’ to be at the place where I eventually had to be at, which is here.

For example, in relationships I had the tendency to create a relationship of dependency with the other person where I would ‘give myself’ to them and attempt to give them that which I believed and perceived they weren’t giving to themselves, which I used as a way to also ‘secure’ the relationship, to make sure they would not ‘run away’ because: no one else was giving that to them, not even themselves. And this is then covered up or disguised as a ‘benevolent act’ of trying to help another or ‘caring’ for another, and it is interesting because I actually knew what I was doing at the time but I would still decide in a conscious way to deceive myself, my self-honesty, and ‘do it anyways’ which is linked to another type of pattern that I’ve faced quite a bit in my life which is ‘rebelling’ against that anyone would advise me to do, where I would automatically just ‘do it because I’ve been told not to’ and not seeing through the actuality of the situation, which of course ends up only in showing myself the consequence of simply ‘doing it’ out of rebellion and not considering reality in its totality – learned lesson.

What I’ve realized in this is that no one can ever ‘warn us’ or ‘tell us’ what to do or not to do, because even if anyone reaches out to say so, we still have the ultimate decision on what we do and create. Therefore it’s actually quite a gift to acknowledge this responsibility, because there is nothing and no one to blame, but it is simply a deep realization that one can only ever deceive oneself. I definitely knew that I had been setting myself up for failure or future consequence and outcomes that would represent or ‘by default’ become the result of my very flawed starting points in, for example, creating a relationship which was standing in the shape of fear, fear of being alone, fear of ‘missing out’ on some experiences etc. or seen as a desire to ‘be complete’ in one way or another.

If my starting point in my past relationships had been that of seeking a comfort zone where I would not be ‘left alone’ because of making the other person ‘dependent on me’ to ‘be ok within themselves’ and where they would not be in essence ‘good enough’ for themselves, then there was also that possibility of me having a certain control as in ‘ensuring the relationship’ or having this person in my life – apparently, again – which is completely flawed In the sense that it is a deceptive and self-interest starting point, because if I create something from the starting point of fear, wanting to dominate, wanting to control and in essence doing it all from the fear of ‘not being alone’ or ‘fear of being alone’ or ‘missing out’ or whatever else, well! Such apparently hidden starting point would eventually manifest the outcome of me having to stop a relationship because such consequences of choosing a flawed starting point would eventually come out in ways that I could foresee could happen before, but because of holding on to a ‘hope’ - which is in fact holding on to a convenient comfort-zone of wishing and thinking things will ‘go well in the end’ which is translated into ‘I hope that the truth of this deception won’t ever hit the fan’ type of thing – I simply kept the ball of deception rolling.

But, who am I within such a decision? Yes, I was in fact existing in fear, in the constant suspense of something eventually happening that will force us to ‘break up’ because I simply knew that such possibility was there when I know I am not standing full, complete, whole within myself, but still creating a relationship from having at that time in my life felt ‘alone’ and so creating an idea of taking someone I could ‘support’ and ‘be with’ as a comfort zone masked or disguised as ‘support’ when in fact the actuality is that it was a way to not ‘feel alone’ anymore, which for sure had been a constant in my life up to that point.

So in essence I set myself up for failure in those situations and this is something I was aware of at a conscious level, yet! I did it anyways. And this is the point of self-sabotage that I want to share about as well as a self-reminder of how at times even when there’s this plain awareness of ‘self-sabotage’ about something, I’ve decided to ‘do it anyways’ based on deciding to go for the experience, to make decisions based on fears that are linked to ‘feelings’ and hopes and expectations, which are all non substantial reasons to make a decision such as who you’d like to spend your life with. And I knew it and I did it anyways, and I got my result to in a way bluntly show me and go through the experience of ‘this is what I decided to do, this is what I set myself up for’ which sure, it’s not a ‘pleasant’ experience, but in my case a very necessary one because after repeating this pattern for so many times in my life – almost in every single relationship I’ve had – it was about time I had to face some more ‘real-time’ outcomes that involved not only me and the other person but many more in it so that I could finally take my life seriously in that sense and stop hoping or dreaming of ‘changes’ happening according to my desired outcome.

What I’ve learned from this and from having repeatedly done this in my life is that I in a way decided to go through it almost to prove to myself – once again – why and how this cannot work, going through the somewhat ‘traumatizing’ situation of having to sort out an actual separation even in legal matters to now fully comprehend how ‘easily’ I gave into faith, hope and fear as the starting point of a relationship that had to end the way it did, because my starting point was flawed and I knew it all the way.

Now, something I’ve also learned is to not judge myself for it. I could be whining and saying I ‘lost’ x amount of time of my life, but I’ve instead managed to as with everything take it as a learning curve, getting to understand and see ‘who I was’ in every step of the way of such relationships, and it’s not the ‘me’ that is here as myself any longer – which is great – yet it is still a part of who I had been most of my life and it’s not something that’s just ‘gone’ but it is there and I am aware that I can decide to become that again or not, which is the same with any other patter, situation or conflictive experience within ourselves: we might have ‘gone past it’ now, but as with anything the potential is always there to recreate it if I decide to do so, it’s always up to me.

However I’ve now seen that it is only through this last consequence I created that I managed to ‘finally’ make a click within me and see what I was settling-with essentially. And here it’s not about diminishing or judging, criticizing ‘the other person’ at all. It is about what I decided, what my choices were, what my excuses, reasons and justifications were and how in full awareness of what I was doing and placing myself into, I simply ‘did it anyway’ in a form of blind faith and seeking some benefits and perceived convenience that led me to eventually yes, thankfully and through a sour consequence, burst the bubble and go back to square one of self-honesty.

Where I currently am in my life is definitely a different place, one where I know I would be prone to repeat myself if I follow ‘the same steps’ I’ve followed in my life before when it comes to relationships, and this time I’ve made sure that I get to focus on myself and fully see ‘who am I’ within this ‘aloneness’ point that had gotten me to seek out some kind of dependency before.

How have I gotten to do it? This process if for once ‘it’, there is no other way to get to appreciate me other than getting to know myself, every step of the way, learn to not judge me but understand my decisions, paths, choices and learn from it. Stopping for example creating some kind of obsessions and infatuations about people – of which I’ve been quite prone to do in the past – and instead get to appreciate me, live me, enjoy me, value me and this is something that has taken some time for sure, it’s all about making the decision to see myself with the same pair of eyes that I have tended to look at other people – specially males of course in my case – which I would turn into a form of attraction, desire or even ‘love’ and I’ve continued to test this out as I’ve been sharing in the past months with how I’ve been dealing with some points of ‘attraction’ or dare I call it ‘infatuation’ which has been quite a life-long habit in my life and I’ve finally learned to see it with a different set-of-eyes.

Last night I was watching an interview by another one of those people I have had what I can define as an ‘attraction to’ – yep another artist, etc. – and I definitely enjoy testing ‘who I am’ when seeing them, hearing their words, seeing how they move/express and seeing what moves within me. This time I noticed it has changed from how I would look at the person a few years ago and all that I would get is this slight churning within my solar plexus which is what I’d define as attraction and just leave it at that. Believing that ‘yes I like their personality’ and that’s it, but the reality is that I wasn’t looking any deeper than that because I wasn’t looking WITHIN myself deep enough, I wasn’t seeing myself as living words, I wasn’t seeing myself as these qualities that I actually enjoy about me, but was constantly looking ‘outside of myself’ for that, and the most common way was through creating ‘idols’ as in people I would admire – in the case of women – or develop these infatuations and attractions towards males.

So this time, I realized that what emerged within me was a sense of recognition of the other being for who they are, what they express, how they’ve come to be themselves and simply appreciate it, being thankful as well that there’s people in this world that throughout time I’ve been able to listen to and ‘get to know’ even in these very limited ways like through interviews or their creations and instead of only leaving my experience at a point of ‘excitement’ about them or infatuation, I’ve been able to transform that into a learning, appreciating the words that they are living within and as themselves.

There was no longer that ‘desire’ in me, or that fleeting energetic bubble bursting up, in fact after I decide to face this ‘attraction’ in seeing, hearing them I am able to make a clear decision of changing the way in which I see another human being and instead turn that into an ‘embracing’ of sorts, which now that I see it is also what I would like any other person to do onto myself as well. I would definitely not want to be in their shoes and having someone being infatuated and obsessed ‘with me,’ because that surely is quite a point of separation to exist in, as I was existing in in terms of the actual relationships I formed and the relationships that I’d create in my mind in relation to all of these people that at one point or another I developed relationships with in my mind for the most part.

So, after watching that interview I realized how much I had transformed people – well males specifically – into objects of desire, of wanting to ‘possess’ someone because of what I believed I would get ‘from them,’ whereas now I am definitely at a place where there’s this self-fulfillment where I no longer go seeking this ‘other person’ to ‘fulfill me’ or ‘give me’ or ‘be for me’ that which I haven’t been able to live for myself. I can only now share myself, walk with, learn from and possibly contribute back, but that’s about it, there’s no ‘need’ any longer as I used to experience it in the context of personal relationships.

I’ve also seen how there has been this tendency throughout my life of expecting someone to ‘come into my life’ and appreciate me, value me for all that I am and have been through or have realized about myself, and every single time there’s that expectation within me, I’ve ended up disappointed, because it’s of course a flawed starting point, a desire for ‘someone else’ to do that which I hadn’t done for myself which is again appreciate me, enjoy me, be actually quite ‘fascinated’ by myself – and not in the narcissist kind of way lol – but in truly realizing that: I cannot ever fully share every single detail and moment of my life that I only know how I’ve gone through it, what I’ve developed within myself in every step of the way and have another ‘appreciate me’ for that. I can only do that for myself because I am the only one that has always ever been there with me, and this self-relationship and realization of ‘I got me and I will always do’ is quite a substantial one that I had known and become aware of at a ‘theory’ level, but I had not genuinely expressed that as a true form of embracing, gratitude and appreciation to myself, which is see if very much here now which I now am able to extend to anyone else according to what I express and give first to me. Which is how I realized I was able to change the ‘pair of eyes’ with which I look at people – again specially males I’ve been attracted to – and take from each ‘what’s best’ what words I see I can integrate from them within myself and ‘complete me’ that way, get to live what I yearned of others.

How does this ‘feel’ like or ‘translates’ to? Being comfortable with myself, with being alone as well and so being comfortable towards others too. I used to be the kind that was constantly yearning to not be alone or be in a relationship to have some constant companion and something to ‘focus on’ or ‘be for’, but I’ve realized and seen how I am quite fine by myself and that translates to being also quite fine and comfortable when being with a partner. Surely, I enjoy being sharing, expressing with another but even that would not be a constant point of stability, enjoyment, sharing and expression if I had not first developed myself within this path I just described and gotten to start living these words for and as myself first, so that a relationship therefore doesn’t become another ‘dependency’ point which I’m seeing is definitely possible as well and something that’s quite ‘new’ to me too.

Many times people having similar patterns to the one I’ve just described in relation to ‘relationships’ as the ‘weakness point’ in one’s life, we tend to make of relationships that ‘completion’ point, and I’ve been looking at this quite intently and testing myself out in the way I see people that for example I used to be ‘attracted to’ because of liking their expression or their skills or ‘ways of being’ and principles, values etc. And last night as I mentioned, I realized I no longer turn that into some kind of ‘physical attraction’ or ‘desire’ to have a relationship with that person, but instead has become a seeing within another their potentials, their ‘wisdom’ if you will as their very unique and individual experiences and expression. I decided to no longer look at another through the eyes of ‘infatuation’ or ‘I want to have a relationship with you so that I can have that which I see you are/have,’ but instead I take the words that I see or perceive they are embodying and living and make them part of myself, and some other things I simply appreciate them for, for what they stand for and do which at times it’s something quite unique and that I can only see and understand is an expression of what’s ‘here’ as ourselves and that’s it, embrace it, enjoy it- but not try and ‘possess it’ anymore, which is very liberating.

I am more learning to see people as equals in fact, not as ‘objects of desire’ which is of course a point of separation from myself. I’m learning to see and appreciate others for who they are and no longer go ‘wishing’ or ‘desiring’ a relationship as a ‘short cut’ to actually get to live and be ‘that’ for myself, which is a very cool position to be at really, it stops a lot of the ‘mindfucks’ and instead it has opened myself up a true appreciation of someone’s existence, someone’s expression, someone’s work, someone’s words and experiences for what they are.

I was laughing at myself last night when seeing this because I never thought I would be in that position of being able to ‘appreciate’ another human being at that level, where it is devoid of a ‘feeling’ or ‘fears’ but simply in the expression of ‘I see you’ and in a way appreciating ‘who they are’ as their expression, that ‘role’ or part of life they represent. I used to be the kind that would even disregard everything that I’ve learned from fellow humans in my ever-constant idea that there was ‘no point’ in life and that we should all just be doomed to be washed away from the face of the Earth. It’s been a long walk since I was living that kind of statements, I was sooo limited! So veiled by my own emotions and minimized view of myself and so of the rest of the world, but I don’t judge it, it’s just what it is, I am rather thankful and grateful I didn’t give up on myself and have continued to push through and get to where I am now.

It is so that I could not have gotten myself to see, express and realize these things before at all, it’s all ‘here’ right now as a result of all the years of self work through and with the Desteni tools and yes, some very necessary consequences in my life, some ‘hard spots’ to go through for me to understand the starting point of my creation and the consequences that I create when making decisions based on desires, hope, feelings and fears and now realizing more about myself, getting to appreciate myself more than ever before – not to place my on a pedestal as superiority here either – but simply in that realization of how I’ve come to where I am currently and no longer judging me for all of the past decisions, mistakes, deception that I’ve participated on, but understanding it as what in a way I decided to walk through to teach me something, to show me in real time and manifested consequences what happens if I miss ‘myself’ in the equation of my life and so instead turn that ‘missing’ into a me-is-here, realizing I’ve got potential, I decide what to live and express, up to me and my possibilities and willingness to do it, which is in fact a very liberating and expansive realization.

Thanks for reading.

Check out these and all other supportive material at eqafe.com to which I am forever grateful for, because I would not be sharing this if it wasn’t for what I’ve heard, learned and applied over the years with the support provided here

Or recognizing the silliness of our fortressed egos that create conflict toward each other and walking a process to create peace in it.

I was listening to the news this morning and heard the word ‘reconciliation’ where this is happening between some countries and what emerged within me was a form of ‘Duh! That’s what’s always been needed’ as if it was a very obvious and common sensical thing to do between countries only. So, right there I stopped myself on this ‘righteousness track’ of me being ‘the judge’ that calls out the process as a ‘duh! Taking too long, it was so obvious, why hadn’t it been done before’ as if I was in fact living the nature of reconciliation within me and towards those in my life, so I proceeded to look within me and ask ‘Hmm wait a minute, am I existing in conflict with anyone right now or in the past that I could in fact create a ‘reconciliation’ with?’ and immediately the answer was yes, and the idea of a few people in my life came up. There’s been quite a few people that I simply cut ties with in the past in quite blunt and dare I say arrogant way where I didn’t even explain myself or give it ‘my time of day’ to actually consider ‘my reasons’ and question them, I simply walked away in a rather cold and ‘disheartening’ way to say the least.

So this is a simple example of taking a word in a moment, seeing how I related to it as if I was ‘already done with’ living the word reconciliation and kind of standing as the judge that points out ‘well duh that’s so obvious to do!’ but I had not in fact done this for myself yet in all cases and dimensions that are quite ‘here’ within me till this day.

Even more so, it’s not really about looking at reconciliation with people out there, how about first starting with living reconciliation within myself towards the patterns, ways, behaviors that I’ve gotten to be ‘secretly’ ashamed of within myself, such as for example the ways that I parted ways with people in my life before, or how I got into my high horse where I believed ‘I knew better’ and stopped such friendships from a starting point of arrogance… have I ‘made peace with’ or created a reconciliation with myself with that? Not entirely.

I have gotten to understand ‘who I was in my mind’ back then and how I was thinking and looking at things, that’s a point of understanding - but, making a full point of reconciliation it’s probably not there yet because as much as I can understand, I haven’t yet extended this explanation to others and the lingering question is: is it really relevant extend this reconciliation with others even after all of this time or is it something more to do for me? And the point is that I in fact know who I’d like to re-approach and in essence share these points and who I simply don’t see much of a point to do considering how we are on very ‘different points’ in our lives currently and for now it’s not relevant, though not saying ‘no’ to never consider it or do it, meaning I’m not in the same reluctance I was existing as some time ago towards specific people that had been in my life.

So, upon listening to the word ‘reconciliation’ lol, I started sounding it in the moment and saw the words ‘reckoning’, ‘recognizing’, ‘silly’ and it clicked! Reconciliation as the process of recognizing our reckoning, our judgments that upon seeing them it makes me realize the silliness in moments where things ‘blow up’ between two or more people, where conflict emerges because one or the other was too ‘caught up in the mind’ to talk through it, to understand better, to consider another, to understand the situation and then make an informed and stable decision of in fact deciding to part ways or ‘stop a relationship’ with someone or work things out.

This is in fact something that I haven’t lived in relation to certain people in the past and I can see that with the one person I’d like to actually live reconciliation I haven’t approached her yet because I was still existing in a reluctance to admit my own silliness, how I in fact allowed myself to get so absolutist in my experience back then that I justified the action of stopping that friendship and even saw it as some kind of ‘courageous move’ within me, which at the time sure, it was part of a how I was looking at my life and so people/everything in this world – but looking back, I know things could have been different, even if it was in fact time for us to ‘part ways’ it could have done in a much more gentle, supportive and understanding way.

Here I look back to the point of reconciliation, where many times we want to hold ourselves ‘intact’ and ‘right’ in our assessment of things, but it takes actual humbleness to see where we became too egotistical, too righteous, too absolutist, too inflexible within ourselves not to see what we were in fact doing and acting out of certain beliefs, ideas or religion of self – and within doing so, being able to admit to oneself and see how we tend to blow things out of proportion when we are in our minds, where we want to ‘stand true’ to our egos and believe that ‘I am right, the other one is wrong and end of the story’ and how this solidifies the idea that we have of ourselves that at times takes a lot of chiseling to start ‘tearing apart’ because we become ‘rock hard’ in such definitions the longer we hold them as ‘true’ and ‘right’ and ‘honest’ over time.

First point is then to be willing to admit one’s mistakes, daring to questioning oneself is the key to start seeing ‘where’ and ‘how’ something that we are judging as ‘obvious’ towards the world out there hasn’t been lived in a very ‘obvious’ manner within self and within that, then moving to create and live the words that I now see I haven’t unconditionally lived within me.

Seeing the point further, it is not so much to live ‘reconciliation’ with another as a first step, as much as it is reconciliation ‘towards’ another within ourselves, in our minds, in our behavior, in how we decide to be towards them from now on.

The first point is to recognize this silliness, this egotistical manners within ourselves, be able to self-forgive all of the ideas, beliefs, perceptions that we have or had about something/someone in order to create humbleness, to ‘de-armor’ ourselves, to chisel down the rock-hard ego, to step down from one’s high horse, to stop living in a haughty-position, to be willing to be vulnerable, to recognize one’s own thoughts, words, deeds as flawed or not the best ways in particular contexts where we know we created a consequence that till this day might remain as a ‘sour’ thought or memory in our heads.

Many times we also limit ourselves in establishing this reconciliation because we condition it to ‘the other person’ like ‘Ah, they are not interested in talking to me or ‘making amends’ with me anymore, so I rather not even try and just let it go’ and that’s another form of ego there as well. So, how I decide to do this is first recognize my own actions, my ‘silliness’ as the reasons I created back then to part ways, to ‘cut ties’ in quite a sudden and rather tyrannical manner to be honest. Self-forgive the guilt, the shame, the regret for doing this and then asses practically: do I want to establish a connection with this/that person or people or group that once part of my life again? And take it from there.

I’ve been ‘meaning to do this’ with a particular (ex)friend of mine and for some reason or another I had not actually done it…well this ‘reason or another’ is in fact me still existing in a judgment towards my decisions and actions ‘back then’ so, by recognizing it, self-forgiving it and instead live a decision of who I decide to be with this person from who I am currently and approach them ‘from here’ makes much more sense to me, rather than trying to approach them from ‘who I was back then’ which is not necessary either, nor is it necessary to feel ‘bad’ about it, that only creates guilt trips, all it takes is sharing what I’ve realized now and how I see the situation from my current stance and current ‘pair of eyes’ so to speak.

Living self-forgiveness means being in fact ‘in the moment’ and expressing anew, yes to a person ‘from our past’ but expressing in fact as this process of self-reconciliation that I’m doing in relation to that friendship. And! at the same time being unconditional when approaching the other person, having no expectations or fears of the outcome – well if any fears emerge, they too can be written out and self-forgiven! What’s the worst that can happen? What do I fear losing? Etc. type of questions. It is a self-decision to do so, without expecting things to ‘be the same as before’ or ‘be friends again’ or ‘fearing being rejected’ or whatever else, but instead doing it for oneself, as a decision, as an expression in the moment – no strings attached.

So, I’ll share back how this works out, but I definitely wanted to share this point about ‘recognizing the silliness’ because it is truly silly what we become in our minds as these fortressed egos that nothing can ‘tear down’ that solidify with time if we continue justifying ‘why we did it’ and not question it at all.

Recognition starts with making a couple of questions to oneself and being willing to admit one’s part in it all, being willing to admit one’s ego in it all, one’s silliness when being taken over by some personality that was not in fact who we really know we can be in relation to others – the shame or regret that comes with it is a key to then take the next step to truly create a reconciliation within oneself and so in who we decide to be from here on towards others, regardless of how others take it/perceive it or act on it. It’s always about self and who self is in relation to oneself and so in relation to others.

And that’s how whatever we see in the world ‘out there’ as ‘things to do to create world peace’ can start being lived first and foremost in our day to day living, in our relationship towards others, even if people are dead/gone and can no longer be ‘relived’ as relationships, we can in fact correct those relationships within ourselves, through understanding who we were at the time, recognizing our ego at the time, what patterns were being lived in it and seeing what we can change in our memory towards them and why not, considering to now live such corrections and new ways of living towards others with whoever is now in our lives and in relationships to come. That’s what’s great about this process, there’s a timelessness to it because it’s not about ‘making peace’ with others, but it’s about making peace and solving things first and foremost within ourselves and so towards ‘the world’ as a result.

Thanks for reading

Check out these supportive audios at Eqafe.com without which I would not be able to draw these conclusions and live this self-support

Life Review - The Relationship between Fear, Guilt and Shame
How to Transcend Shame and Transform It to Integrity - Part 170
Guilt: Understanding Guilt - Atlanteans - Part 123
Shame, Shame, Shame - Quantum Systemization - Part 58
Redefining Integrity - Reptilians' Support - Part 171
It's too Late for Me - The Future of Consciousness - Part 78
Wall of Shame - Quantum Systemization - Part 69

Or walking through a revision of past relationships and learning to let go of ‘what once was’, keeping what was good while also opening up current opportunities to communicate and learn from myself and others.

So, continuing on the point of reconciliation within self and then extending it to some people in my life. It really only takes one’s will to get things done, a decision to look at it and in self-honesty just move and do the connections, do the writings, sending the messages or emails and get it done, I really have no excuse to do this nowadays with our multiple ways to connect through the internet, so it was just a matter of ‘doing it’ and so it’s done.

It was interesting to send messages to people that I know I had been particularly arrogant and short-sighted towards, in a way yes explaining a bit of my context back then in my interactions with them and how I’d like to apologize for my behavior and abrupt ways towards them. These are people that even if we are not ‘on the same page’ anymore, I’ve tested this out some two years ago with another past friend of mine how it was quite supportive to simply get in contact again, have some coffee together and get past the ‘itch’ of having ended up things in an ‘awkward way’ after being quite close friends – best friends actually - for a few years over a decade ago. In the same way I also decided to ‘touch base’ with another friend that I had also been procrastinating to contact for some months now and in a way reminding myself to not be the one that ‘let’s things dry’ because of not nurturing relationships, and in doing so forgetting how much I do enjoy sharing myself with people and not only in this format of writing a blog but in actual one on one communication.

I’ve looked at the word ‘miser’ lately and how I tend to in a way isolate myself, even more so when things are going quite stable, fine in my life and not consider sharing more of myself with others when things are ‘quite alright’ on my end. Meaning, I’ve seen how the pattern in my life has been of mostly keeping in contact with others when being ‘longing’ for communication or ‘desiring’ some kind of contact with others or feeling down and in a way wanting to establish a point of support for me through getting in contact with others. In other words, I’ve seen how in my case I had tended to create relationships because of not being ‘ok’ and ‘stable’ within myself, or having sought validation, appreciation or ‘self-worth’ through relationships and friendships. I realize how I haven’t yet decided to create relationships without having a ‘need’ for it such as having an experience of dread within me like feeling that ‘I need to talk to someone’ or out of wanting someone to ‘hear my problems’ or vice versa where I played ‘the savior’ with friends and partners as my way to be relevant in someone’s life, but that’s in the past.

So the new starting point is establishing communication is simply through making a decision to get to see how another is doing and where they’re at in their lives and simply saying ‘Hi! I’m here!’ and having no further pretense on it, which is what I decided to do today as a result of deciding to live the word reconciliation with certain people I had kept in a ‘bottle’ within myself tagged as ‘conflictive situations’ and had buried it somewhat deep down in the sands of time so as to apparently not have to ‘face them’ at any point again. But I know they come up in my awareness, therefore I knew that I still had to give a direction to it, which I did just today.

I’d like to share a bit about my physical experience while writing to both of them. A noticeable kind of ‘wavering’ emerged in my solar plexus, a bit of a heaviness as well because of believing ‘I don’t know where to start’ but didn’t dwell much on it. I started with whatever came up in the moment, something that has recently led me to think of them or remember them and from there share a bit more about myself, leading to going ‘straight to the point’ of what I consider I wanted to share with them for some time now which is apologizing for how I treated them before, explaining a bit of my context at the time and from there opening up the door for communication, and leave it at that.

It was also interesting how in a way as I was typing - and this is rather unusual in me – I was kind of wanting to look away from the screen as I was typing lol, like looking towards the window as my fingers moved on across the keyboard (I can type without seeing the keyboard) so upon noticing these insta-moments of ‘wanting to look away’ I realized that it was me physically acting the remnants of this ‘admitting my silliness’ towards them and a bit of shame related to ‘what I’ve done’ towards these people and ‘owning’ my reaction through finally writing/touching base with them.

What was also important for me is to clear my starting point, meaning not contacting them out of guilt, out of ‘making up for’ the past or ‘redeeming’ myself with them – even though I apologized, it’s more a consideration of me towards them, but not out of guilt anymore - it was more of a genuine decision to ‘open up’ to communicate, to be willing to follow through the communication and also making sure I hold no reactions, grudges, ideas, beliefs perceptions about ‘them’ or ‘the past’ or anything of that, but kind of create a ‘blank slate’ for them, anew, meeting them for the first time type of openness if you will.

I consider this is also part of the maturity to embrace our past, not judging it and being able to embrace what’s here in our current reality, no longer being limited by the past or holding relationships of ‘grudges’ and ‘sour times’ towards to others, but being self-forgiving towards it all.

You know how when we are kids – or sometimes not so ‘young’ but happens anyways – and we get flustered with each other for ‘silly reasons’ – hence the ‘reconciliation = recognizing the silliness in a situation’ – and how much we had to hold up this ‘tight face’ towards each other, yet how easy it was to also in a moment decide to ‘be friends again’ and be done with it at the same time, quite a more innocent approach for sure, which I can now integrate as the way to look at people: with innocence, anew, not ‘loading all my memories of the past’ next time I see them, but be ‘devoid’ of it all and work with what emerges in the moment.

To me there was a significant situation in my life where I was able to understand how ‘easy’ it was to get back to ‘being friends with’ someone even after years of not talking to each other. This happened with my cousin who later on became my best friend for quite a few years where we had a conflict, a ‘kids’ conflict’ – yes, literally fighting over a Barbie skirt or something like that or me being bothered by the roles she wanted to take on in ‘children’s play’ – and we got to a point of deciding not to talk to each other. I was like 5 and she was 6 and this lasted for some 5 years in fact. We would go to the same school every day, be taken to it in the same car and only speak the basics, but never hangout together. I still can’t believe how long it took us to get to ‘make peace’ with each other, which didn’t emerge from us, but through my aunt that decided to place us both in a situation of giving each other ‘the peace hand’ during a new year’s eve or Christmas after 5 years of not talking to each other, and from there on we were together for quite a few years in a very close manner.

I consider now how my ‘pre-teens’ and early teenage years would have been if I had not re-established my relationship with my cousin that way, and how I would have turned out if I had continued to live with a grudge and this ‘silly’ disconnection towards her for really ‘no reason’ at all other than each one of us having these ‘tough headed reasons’ of why we apparently disliked each other. Yet, when we finally made peace with each other, it was almost instantaneous that we could enjoy each other a lot along with the rest of our cousins. Though it seems I didn’t entirely learn from that situation at the time, because I did get to repeat same story in my life with a few people, some whom I see is also best to not contact for now because of yes, being in quite different ‘spots’ in our lives, though it’s also up to me to ensure that I am not holding any grudges or ‘hurt feelings’ towards them.

What I’ve been doing instead lately is to remember of all of these people that I’ve come to be in contact with and be friends with at some point in my life – no matter how long or short mostly from my teenage years on - and rather being grateful for them, for the times I got to spend with them, what I got to learn from them, how each one assisted me in their own ways to ‘open up’ to a world that would have been quite difficult for me to find and discover on my own. Therefore I’ve been also doing this ‘revisiting’ within myself towards these people in my life and changing my perspective towards them from only seeing ‘their defects, their problems, the justifications why I stopped being friends with or in a relationship with them’ to rather ‘keeping all the good’ that I did learn from them, that I got to enjoy from them and that I have in fact integrated as parts of myself and who I am without being consciously aware of it. Therefore turning my relationship towards them within myself from existing in a grudge to gratefulness, of learning from each and remembering in essence all the cool stuff that I did get to learn, live and express with and through my relationships with them.

This has assisted me in also stop seeing my past relationships as ‘a fuckup’ or only as a bundle of ‘problems’ or ‘conflicts’ and whatever else stands in a negative stance. This has only been possible to do as I also have been changing the way I see my life and how I see people, stopping focusing on all the flaws, the heavy judgments I used to constantly rehash about everything and everyone and instead decide to cherish the supportive stuff, that which I genuinely learned from and enjoyed in and from them.

Now this is also a way to turn nostalgia into something practical too, because I had tended to become very ‘nostalgic’ about my past that I either idealized within a ‘positive’ experience or the complete opposite. What I’ve done is to instead be more objective and going reviewing ‘each person’ that in a way has made an impact in my life and seeing the words they lived, the aspects I liked about them, what ‘attracted me to them’ and from there seeing how I can live these words within myself. This makes of this ‘remembering’ or ‘revisiting’ process something a lot more supportive than just rewinding memories and creating a yearning for the past or something like that, which is not ‘here’ not for them, not for me, not for anyone really.

So, this becomes a much more tangible thing to do in a way to also create a reconciliation with my past, with how I related to people back in the day and yes why not? seeing what can be re-established in relation to them currently – or also using imagination in a supportive manner to see ‘who would I be’ if I see them again, would I hide and pretend I don’t see them or would I gladly approach them to talk to them? The latter is what I decide to do, which is not something that comes ‘natural’ to me, because I’ve seen how when being caught up in the moment fear has emerged and I’ve done the ‘hiding and pretend you don’t see them’ before, but I decide to change this because hiding and pretending not to see means there are memories, things I am still reacting to, fearing or defining of myself in relation to them, and there’s no point in continuing that, because I have in essence nothing to ‘hold on to’ of my past any longer.

This is therefore merely the outflow and practical process of in fact ‘letting go’ of the past and what it means to practically not react to memories and people ‘of my past’ and instead learn to see them as: people! Yes, sure, people I connected with in various levels before, but I can decide to no longer see them as ‘a memory’ but focus on who they are currently and take it from there, which is the same approach I definitely would like others to create towards me: to bury all hatchets and start anew, because hell, yes I’ve done this for myself within this process, giving myself that ‘blank slate’ and ‘starting over’ in so many aspects, so it’s about time to extend it to many other ways ‘outside’ of myself too.

Thanks for reading!

Check out these supportive audios to walk through similar points in your life available at eqafe.com

Or how to share oneself in an open and unconditional manner with others after living self-intimacy for oneself first

I’ll share a about an experience that opened up while I was communicating with someone about a subject or topic that I had not particularly shared about with anyone else before, therefore already holding this ‘charge’ within myself of sharing something quite ‘intimate’ or ‘secret’ within me that I had not opened up before or shared about myself with others because of having existed in a relationship of shame, regret and therefore secrecy towards it.

Here I created a predisposition of perceiving that what I was sharing with the person was ‘more meaningful’ or more ‘intimate’ than other topics, like imposing an idea of specialness towards it instead of simply sharing it for what it is – though it’s understandable here in my case considering that it’s the kind of experience one initially has when ‘opening up’ a rather ‘sensitive’ topic or what one has defined as ‘sensitive’ or ‘intimate’ or ‘secret’ aspect of ourselves to another, which I have in a way identified as ‘being intimate’ with another, which I’d say cannot really exist as such within an aura of specialness, but a simple seeing within self first and then sharing it with another, which is what I was doing in that moment according to my starting point.

So when I was sharing about this aspect of myself that I had already defined as ‘I am sharing this for the first time with another’ there I was kind of already making it something ‘more’ than what it is in in fact in my head, which is also the reason why I had not shared about it before – and I noticed how the other person was looking away or dealing with something else in that moment, which I communicated to see if there was something to be attended on in order to ‘get past it’ and kind of ‘get the focus back on myself’ but in that insta-moment what was triggered within me was a very old pattern in my life where I’ve believed, perceived or assumed that others don’t really want to hear me/my story/my ‘depth’ or what I have to open up or share, in all the detail that I share it with and what I activate is a perception of ‘others not being interested in what I have to share about me/myself/some deep stuff’ and have used that before to then react in ‘shutting down’, meaning refraining or stopping myself from sharing, so tending to suppress more– which I’ve also defined as ‘moments of intimacy’ that become thwarted according to this idea belief, perception or interpretation of ‘not being interested, don’t pay attention, so rather not do it at all’, or ‘not relevant for them,’ or they seem bored by it, etc.

The solution is to rather ask, be direct and share what is being experience in the moment, communicate about it if it’s a point of communication being built with someone that is at a more personal and yes in depth level. Otherwise within assumptions and suppressions one can build up large chunks of ‘unprocessed’ stuff that becomes a source of further emotions if not opened up and dealt with within oneself and shared with the other person as a point of shared awareness.

Due to how I’ve perceived this to be a ‘common thing’ in various relationships-partners and friendships before, I triggered it again which causes an experience of being ‘irrelevant, not important, not interesting, worthless to give attention to’ which at the same time holds underlying points of seeking some kind of ‘full attention/consideration’ that I had not given to myself either, which played out in the way I focused more on ‘supporting people’ or making myself ‘needed’ by another in a relationship or ‘finding ways out there to sort out the world’ but missing out these key self-aspects: giving, doing, being these points for myself first!

Also here it’s relevant to clarify this point of intimacy and being ‘intimate’ with another and how upon reacting to something I see on the other I went into a ‘shut down’ or assumption of ‘they don’t really want to hear’ which would be a source of self-pity and ‘no one understands me’ type of experience that is experienced as a remnant of the past, even though I actually have quite some enjoyment in opening and disclosing all of these points to myself as well, which proves that yes even one single thought invested into the ‘pop-up’ of the pattern, can trigger these old patterns which I’ve been seeing now are linked to various memories and what I’ve defined as ‘bitter situations’ in the past.

And due to that insta-reaction, the usual ‘next step’ was to – in the past – consider ‘ah they’re not interested in getting to know me or ‘be intimate” which is an externalization of what I had not lived for myself/given myself as full attention, self-appreciation and self-worth. Here’s then how intimacy is in fact into-me-I-see as learned through the Desteni material, where we can in fact first focus on getting to know ourselves, seeing within me, getting to understand me, appreciate me, honor me, enjoy me rather than expecting another person to do and be this for me, to ‘see me’ in the exact same way and ‘depth’ that I would like them to see me, but it’s practically not possible to do this in the reality we are in, where yes as much as we can share ourselves through words and actions, no other person will ever be in our exact same body/life experience all the way with ourselves as we have been for ourselves, and that’s merely a fact of life that leads me to remember to be ok with seeing within me, getting to know me, getting to appreciate me in all the things that I see, realize, get to understand and surely, share as much as I can through words and interactions with others, but without creating an expectation of a certain regard or experience from another towards it, and that’s where ‘sharing unconditionally’ is also the solution.

So yep, it all starts with an assumption, perception, idea of what the other is experiencing to which then I react in shutting down / keeping things to myself. I’ve also been in the position of being directly told ‘I don’t care to hear that/ don’t want to hear about that’ which I would have a hard time with as in sadness emerging, like ‘shutting up a kid’ type of experience, which is as far as it goes in my case having been a very talkative person since I was very young, lol, not really understanding that yes it might have gotten to be annoying for some at the time, but it’s definitely the kind of ‘deeply rooted’ reactions that led me to see myself as insignificant, worthless, not important, ‘I’d rather die/go away because I’m only a bother here’ type of thoughts. This goes back to childhood times – so, it all resulted in me generally ‘being there’ for others in relationships, only ‘hearing them’ because of perceiving that my stuff was not relevant, was boring, uninterested by perceiving any physical movement in the other as a reaction to what I was saying- while at the same time yearning to open myself up and having someone ‘be interested in me’ in the same way I may find myself and others fascinating to get to know or understand.

However here it’s not about now seeking another to say ‘yes you are interesting’ or ‘I am interested in what you have to say’ because then the point is missed. The point is not really about ‘another’ but about self and realizing how one creates ideas, experiences and expectations towards things that only we, individually, within ourselves can get to see in full scope. It is yes, kind of unfortunate in a way that we cannot yet see ourselves in ‘all dimensions’ and get to see the core of each other and in all transparency, because in essence we cannot do that for or towards others because we haven’t in fact done and walked that for ourselves first, and that’s then the principle of self-intimacy first.

So even if there were times when another person in fact wasn’t interested, or was in fact genuinely wanting to ‘slip away’ from the conversation – it’s not about judging them or judging ourselves for having had these reactions from others. I’ve learned to instead go into considering, understanding ‘who they are’ and what they were ‘into’ at the time and how for some individuals this kind of things might be too personal or too ‘intimate’ to discuss or ‘only pertaining me’ – which are all individual points to walk for each person, though I cannot ever change or control that, therefore it all goes back to what I can do and live for and as myself, which relates back to living self-intimacy first and then sharing myself with another unconditionally, no strings attached, no expectations, no preconceived ideas of what the other will say or how they will react back at it.

This is common sense in realizing that I cannot ask another to be in my head and be in that moment seeing all the ‘meaning’ or ‘depth’ that I’m seeing something within me that leads me to share it and expect the other person to receive it in that ‘equal meaningfulness’ or ‘depth’ that I am creating towards it. It’s kind of like the idea of ‘I’m bearing my soul here for you and you’re not interested in it’ type of experience and assumption – and so learning that this is part of where I have to let go of any expectations and realize I can only share myself unconditionally.

I share it because I’ve definitely made that mistake of keeping things to myself before and not communicating about it, and what emerged in that moment was a distinctive experience, familiar if anything, from past situations that I simply have to practice walking through more and communicate about this situation so that next time I can open it up in the moment with the other person if they are also up for doing this kind of ‘alignments’ within themselves as well or in a relationship.

In doing so, sharing becomes also a one direction movement, where I share me without indirectly expecting the other to change or do anything about it, because that is entirely up to each one to do or act upon or not. Here it’s making sure that I am no longer expecting someone else to ‘fully understand me’ because that’s also still a point of ‘desiring to be appreciated, understood and known’ by someone else, instead of doing, giving and living that for myself first. So in essence being quite unconditional in what I share and continue cultivating openness because that’s what I enjoy and like to be, regardless of anything else I see in another. Of course if there are noticeable reactions I rather from now on ask and cross-reference rather than assuming, which is the key to stop making an ass-of-myself in assumptions.

There’s many times a fine line of whether ‘I should share this’ with the other person or not, but due to my tendency to rather ‘keep it to myself’ – which reads into self-pity, victimization and all of that pattern of suppression – I for now decide do the opposite.

Or walking through the character weakness I created through cheating in relationships and turning it into a current self-committed strength.

In this same process of doing a bit of a ‘looking back’ in my life and the things that I’ve been most ashamed of and regret and have in essence kept as stuff that had ‘haunt’ me as my past was cheating in relationships. As I write this I look away from the screen for a moment because a part of me would not want to expose this side of myself, would prefer to keep things ‘to myself’ but I also see the benefit of not only sharing about this to ‘expose’ myself in the past, but more so to share what I considered as a very personal process that ‘I should keep to myself’, but this was mostly because of existing in shame towards it and judging that ‘tendency’ of myself as something really bad, unforgivable, that caused pain and sorrow in others.

This has been something that I have immediately linked to reviewing shame as it’s been opened up in the awesome audio support here: Facing and Forgiving Real Shame (Part 1) - Demons in the Afterlife and Facing and Forgiving Real Shame (Part 2) - Demons in the Afterlife and through having such support as well as looking at and opening up the word ‘reconciliation’ within me, I saw that I had not made peace with this aspect of myself, mostly also because of keeping it as something that I should never speak of or admit about myself.

I have worked with this for myself, and even if I knew what I was doing at the time, I simply didn’t want to change my ways and would like to ‘keep my possibilities open’ which I only managed to change in the past relationship I had and I’m quite glad about that with myself in how through walking this process and from the very beginning of the relationship, I made a decision to no longer allow myself to ‘waver’ in my decision to be with that person even if we weren’t physically together right away, I made that decision to for once live that commitment to myself, to show to me that I could in fact stop having ‘affairs’ in thought, word or deed when it comes to personal relationships, and I am grateful to myself that I did this even if yes, there were surely moments that I could have defined as ‘openings’ or ‘temptations’ if you will, which surely are never ‘gone’ as such because I realize I have the ability to decide what I define as a ‘temptation’ to begin with which in a way it’s a whole word in itself to open up, which already implies a form of weakness from my perspective, where I believe that ‘I cannot help myself/cannot control/cannot direct’ myself in something and thus ‘fall’ into it, which surely I did experience in relation to cheating as such, which is why I had to yes, of course, let go of that ability within me to make it quite simple to act out on what I saw as an opportunity or potential.

To me the source of shame was more in relation to knowing what I caused in others, the consequences when this happened to be known. Shame and regret emerged within the realization that I was the cause of a lot of turmoil, depression, sadness in in someone’s life, and also how ‘shameless’ I was at the same time in doing it, with without their awareness in my past relationships, which I have by now become aware all were motivated as with many other things in our lives, by the idea of something better, new, more exciting, or simply doing it because ‘the opportunity was here’ and taking it as an ‘innocent’ moment which was of course not living the word innocence in a supportive manner, but more through an experience to veil my responsibility at the time and the actual fear of the potential consequences, like it is explained in this other awesome supportive audio Using Innocence to Defend Fear - Quantum Physical, which I recommend to understand how this ‘misuse’ of the word innocence takes place within ourselves, that was quite helpful for me to also open up this point recently.

I could also say, yes it still was someone else’s decision to dive into such depressive experience upon becoming aware of what I had done, but my part in the whole point is having been dishonest and creating a consequence that in normal terms of course it is not something that is received in stability by most people. So, I have beaten myself up – figuratively speaking – quite a few times for this kind of situations that yes I caused and contributed to creating, while at the same time over time and over some more years after that, I still would do it and not really make a decision to change, until I did after deciding to actually change this ‘tendency’ and pattern within me that I had veiled myself off by seeing it as something that is ‘just here’ and ‘just happened’ while being fully aware that of course it always takes one’s decision to do or not do something.

I’ve also learned through communicating about this point to in a way see that we all cheat ourselves in different ways and levels. Some of us have acted on it, some others tend to only fantasize about doing it, but don’t get to actually live it. That’s how I’ve also seen that cheating as such is always a point of self-deception, where yes one is not living fidelity towards another being and instead is seeking for ‘something else’ with another person, not only at a physical level, but also at a mind level or in the form of ‘mental affairs’ too, because I saw how the sheer acceptance of ‘thinking about another’ in those partnership terms or fantasizing about having a relationship with them or having sex with another person while being in a committed relationship constitutes in essence already an act of ‘cheating’ to oneself, where one is only entertaining an idea of ‘someone else’ in our minds, while one is having an actual, physical, tangible relationship to develop, nurture and commit to, which is what I have decided to do and live from now on in my life.

I’ve been looking at what ‘led me’ to make it so easy for me to not measure consequences, to make it so easy to make a single decision in one moment and for a moment just throw out of the window any commitment to another person because ‘the opportunity presented itself’ and ‘I simply took it’ and how ‘feeble’ in a way I was when it comes to this, being very much moved by desire, lust, an idea of ‘something/someone better’ or simply because ‘it was here’ and so I moved to just do it.

Now, the details of how, when and where I did this all are not relevant to share here, but to me it’s sufficient to share how the kind of laxity towards it is what was a source of shame, which I then also walked through to create an understanding, to understand ‘who I was’ at the time so as to not just see through the eyes of morality but through seeing me and who I was at the time.

At the time I had not created any point of self-awareness or ‘barely’ creating it and developing it within myself, where I would talk to myself to create a point of ‘innocence’ about the moment, as a way to - as the previously mentioned Eqafe audio explains - it was a way for me to make things ‘alright’ within me and not truly have a blunt look at what I was accepting and allowing in having this ‘laxity’ about my commitment to my relationships and how I made it very normal to have ‘open potentials’ to other relationships while being in committed relationships or ‘somewhat’ committed relationships at the time, because they were what they were in the context that I was in at the time in my life as well, where I wasn’t really into developing a relationship of self support or self-respect yet.

One thing I noticed is that I of course suppressed a lot of these things because it was at a time in my life when I was using weed on a regular basis and it was my way to also ‘wipe out’ any immediate inner conflict and ‘shift’ within me to an ‘everything is alright’ state of mind, which I only can know of because I would write about what I was in fact experiencing, and that’s the only remembrance I have of it, because at a conscious level to me it seemed as if there was no conflict at all, but this is how I made myself ‘think’ that ‘I am perfectly fine with it, I know what I’m doing, there’s no problem at all in me, no one’s getting hurt’ as a way to create a false sense of innocence within it all to not have to have a clear view of what I was participating in.

Working on this point has become one of those examples that something that I saw as a weakness in me, I’ve worked on developing it and turning it into a strength within me for the past couple of years.

Though before going into the ‘developing it as a strength,’ I want to share about the process of walking through shame itself and in our group chat at Desteni we had a very cool discussion that led to open up this point about ‘shame’ which can be read here: You cannot see that which you are - 12 July 2017 which opened the door along with looking at the word ‘reconciliation’ for me to do this for once and for all, to identify where and how I’ve experienced that kind of shame in my life and it has been definitely linked to cheating – and it was actually quite a gift in the way that it is explained in this audio support I mentioned at the beginning of this blog about shame, in the sense that I would probably not have gotten to see my reality this way if I had not become aware of how my actions affected another’s life, which at the time I suppressed and just felt bad about it, guilty, remorseful. But I had not taken that step of acknowledging the profound shame I felt in relation to it and it’s probably one of those things that have ‘marked me’ in my life, yet it is and will continue to be there as a reminder of what I’ve done, what I caused when allowing myself to be moved by desire, attraction, the idea of ‘something better’ or something ‘more exciting’ or ‘new’ and all of these experiences I linked to the act of cheating, which were in fact me seeking an experience that eventually of course led to ending relationships due to not establishing that self-commitment, self-honor and self-respect for myself first of all.

In retrospect it is ‘easier’ for me to see how I could have decided to change myself in those moments when facing this ‘temptation’, yet at the time I had not made a clear decision to change, because I still wanted to have these ‘options’ available to me. I wasn’t living a commitment to myself nor towards another. So this is to me an example where many times we make things ‘difficult’ to do or believe that ‘it’s beyond me’ to change, but in self-honesty, the reality is that I was not wanting to change or give up something that I wanted to have, experience or indulge into in my life.

The perceived benefits of ‘going for it’ are only that, a perception, a momentary experience if anything because over time, I see how every time that I ‘gave into it’ became that kind of scars that won’t go away from your mind, and one can self-forgive it, surely, to recognize the point and ensure one doesn’t repeat it again, but as it has been recently explained: self forgiveness wont’ ‘erase’ the memories. Memories will remain as part of who we are, as reminder, as a gift, a ‘cautionary tale’ as I’d like to call them of what I could put myself and others through If I give into this kind of ‘desires’ or ‘fleeting sensations’ that seemed to just ‘open up’ as ‘opportunities’ in my life – which is how I used to define them, see them.

It also had to do with how I approached life back then, where I had placed my life, my destiny in the hands of something ‘else separate from me’ where I thought that people, things, situations would ‘happen for a reason’ and so I would create an innocence point within it as well, which is of course innocence lived as deception, deliberate self-deception just to not have to see the truth and reality of myself in it. Innocence to me now as a living word has a very much different meaning that doesn’t relate at all to ‘pretending to be delusional’ and not realize what I am doing lol, I mean, I know I can only ever deceive myself in fact and that’s where this whole point of cheating is at, not only ‘towards others’ but towards myself, my self-commitment and self-agreement that I am busy living for myself and those whose lives I am directly related to now.

Have these apparent ‘temptations’ gone away? Nope. If I would decide to see a moment, a person, a situation as such and accept it and allow it to exist in me, it would not be so much of a ‘difficult thing’ to do because it’s just like anything else when one ‘goes for it’ without questioning ‘who am I’ within doing something. And yes it can be a bit scary to think of the potentials on this which applies for anything else that we see ourselves having a propensity or tendency to do – and have done in the past - but that’s how I decide to instead of giving any attention to these ‘potentials’ rather create a solid foundation for me to walk through it and as I mentioned earlier, turn it into a strength.

So this is another aspect of our minds, our lives and process where no amount of self-forgiveness will actually remove the potential ‘triggers’ or ‘stimuli’ that we can still decide to react to or ‘act upon’ in our minds – this is why walking through our minds is a moment by moment application, daily thing, every moment thing whenever it is required.

So, how am I living this relationship to this past tendency to ‘cheat’ in relationships? Well, I can wholly say to myself that it’s been quite cool to build that decision of living self-honor, self-respect, self-commitment and consideration – not only for me but to others – when it comes to remaining committed to someone and be able to practically test myself in various times and situations to see ‘who am I’ within it all, and so far I’ve seen how every single time it’s a constant decision to ‘stick’ to my decision to live fidelity and loyalty, simply because that’s the person that I decide to be for myself and another in my life.

Thanks for reading and thanks to the beings that share their experiences at eqafe.com which surely set the example for me to open this up for myself too.

Or learning and be triggered by something/someone to ignite a spark within oneself that can be used to live, create and express in our unique ways

(to access all the links mentioned, please visit the wordpress link above on the title)

Inspiration is one of those words that I had certain conflict with in the past, because of how I had defined ‘inspiration’ as something that would be given to me, either through the interaction with certain people, through having certain life situations or events – even the idea that ‘suffering’ was part of the great catalysts to be inspired in life, to having the effect on weed or through the idea, belief or perception that it was something even given through a form of ‘divine presence’ at some point in my life, which yes is kind of laughable but understandable based on the mindset I was in some ten years ago where I truly thought that my life was being ‘directed’ by some higher force, not to realize that it simply meant pre-programmed/pre-ordained and it didn’t meant the end of the world to me, but that’s a different story I’ve shared before.

So, all of these ways in which I separated myself from inspiration led me to create an idea, belief or perception of being ‘dependent on’ all of these things to be inspired, to be creative, as in having to ‘feel’ something or get an idea, image, picture of what I wanted to create and then get a form of ‘feeling’ within me as an indication that I was ‘ready’ and so expecting this experience of ‘feeling like doing something,’ which at the time I truly thought it merely ‘arrived’ to me, instead of seeing how I in fact was in all of those moments making a decision to do things.

Once that I started working with developing self-awareness through this process with the Desteni living tools – working with self-forgiveness, writing and all the mind processing - it became obvious how I had separated myself from inspiration and turned it into an experience in separation of my directive will and action as in simply deciding to do or create something, decide to practice, to open up ways and means to express myself, not only in arts but in many other aspects in my life, including the continuous ‘inspiration’ that I’ve seen I can nurture myself with on a daily basis, which I’ll describe later.

I was also the kind of person that waited for some kind of ‘sign’ to act out on things, mostly calling it a ‘hunch’ or a ‘sudden drive’ that would apparently would have to ‘come to my awareness’ and I never really understood how everything that I ever created, experienced or decided to act on wasn’t being ‘guided’ by something or someone external to myself, but had and has always in fact been just me, and how this inspiration has always been here as a potential of myself, which means I simply disregarded this self-creative authority because of being essentially ‘waiting’ for something or someone to kind of ‘knock on my creative doors’ and spark that fire in me.

Now, that doesn’t mean that I don’t get ‘inspired’ by others these days, I do, actually a lot in fact and that’s what has assisted me into changing the way I see people and people’s expressions and creations in general. I’ve described how I used to be a kind of misanthrope in my life, even if not at a superficial level, at a more ‘deep’ level within me and to me it’s been quite a radical change recently to see people with a different set of eyes which are the eyes of wanting to ‘get to know’ how people came to be, seeing each person as a very unique compound of life experiences, expressions, words they’re living and I do see that a lot of my approach has been broadened through my exposure to life and people in this world through documentaries, which I am quite grateful for having the opportunity to watch them and even more so doing so in community, where I definitely have come to appreciate the ability to gather with a large group of people to watch it, which is something I would not have said or experienced before, at all.

This change of approach is the result of doing quite a bit of self-processing or de-cluttering, as all the ways in which I had tampered this inspiration point through judgments, beliefs or ‘religion of self’ points and any other ego aspects that I was holding on to, in essence existing in separation of myself and so in separation of others wherein instead of being able to ‘draw’ inspiration from others’ expressions, lives, creations, I would compare myself to them and then decide that ‘they have done it all’ and give up on my own process of creation – or go into an inferiority and superiority towards them and leave it at that. So, even if I could recognize that I could take an inspiration from what I see in others, I would ‘shut it down’ through reacting to it in the mind and not actively acting on it, living it, taking the next step which was to rather see what can I learn from them? What words are they living? What is it that ‘moved me’ to be inspired that I can now integrate into my own creative process? Of course here also considering one is actually aware of one’s creative potential in every moment as well, not just doing something ‘external’ but in our capacity to live and redefine words that we would like to in fact live and express as a way to change all of that of ourselves that we are aware is not being beneficial for us and consequently for others.

So, lately as I’ve shared with the points of attraction or in my mind having misinterpreted many times being attracted to many people – well males in my case lol – was based on recognizing something in them that I wasn’t yet living within me, which is so nicely explained in the following video by Sunette Spies for Self and Living Understanding Attraction which is a must-watch to understand how this works. I re-listened to it this morning where through doing the practical work mentioned there - which I’ve shared a couple of months ago as well - I’ve been able to start ‘discovering’ all of these words and expressions that I was ‘drawn’ to in others through creating an energetic experience of desire or idea of relationship towards them, instead of seeing how can I actually live these words or how am I even already living them and believing that I would want to ‘have that particular expression for me’ in some kind of possession/ownership delusion that is usually translated as ‘desiring to be in a relationship with someone’ which Matti also explains quite well in his following vlog, so check it out: Social Media and Impractical Relationship Fantasies - YouTube

Walking the process explained in both videos with various people in my life – or people I get to know through the internet or biographies or whatever else – has been very supportive for me to, in my case and specific situation, take back to self the word ‘inspiration’ and ground more what I can see is defined as ‘being inspired’ by others to THEN proceed to live inspiration as myself. Because I’ve definitely been there done that many times where I can see something, be ‘inspired’ by someone’s creation or expression and only be moved in that moment, but I’ve also seen how it all can quickly ‘die down’ if I don’t continuously act on it and decide to integrate it as part of my living-words arsenal so to speak or give a continuation to an idea/project/point of self-creation that may have emerged through being inspired by others in a moment, which is something I still have to work on for sure.

I’ve been learning to appreciate more and more in my life the ability to learn from others, to be inspired by and through others’ expression, work, ways, actions, ways of living and words they are living. So through this ability to be inspired by them and at the same time rekindle my relationship with fellow human beings, I’ve actually come to enjoy learning to embrace another’s expression, to be grateful and appreciating them for living such expressions, such words, to be ‘themselves’ in their uniqueness that at the same time reminds me of doing and continuing to develop that for myself as well, which is also in a way how I’ve turned the previously described comparison, going into jealousy with/towards women or desire/attraction towards males and instead turn it into a ‘seeing’ of the person’s expression for what it is, which is as I’ve mentioned before, quite liberating and expansive.

That’s how being inspired by others is something that can happen in any given moment that I decide to see through the eyes of acknowledging another being in their expression, seeing who they are which yes, if the opportunity is here, I start getting to know them better within this same starting point of getting to understand, to ‘see’ a person in a less superficial way, which I also enjoy doing through communication.

I can also consider that this kind of inspiration is not only gotten from fellow humans but with nature or certain environments or things for some, though I can only speak from the human-relationship at the moment and how instead of only leaving it at the level of getting a fleeting sensation of ‘recognition’ in another for who they are and what they express, I decide to take on the next step of getting to see what words they are living, what of their expressions do I see as something that I enjoy and therefore see if I am living that as myself yet or can be something I can expand on in my life, in my context, in my individuality as well – of course within the consideration of self-honesty and what’s best for everyone, not for self-glorification or ego-building purposes, but as a potential of expression that one can create in any given moment.

And this has interestingly enough become a process to develop a more ‘humane’ living in me, where I no longer misinterpret these reactions towards others either through a form of comparison in what others live, express or do in their lives, but rather get intrigued and enjoy learning about others, living curiosity in a way where I am rather more fascinated at times by the processes, the things that people had to go through to get to do and live what they do, rather than only focusing on ‘the final product’ they create in the end, which sure is also enjoyable, but I’ve also seen this in my approach to creative people for example, where as much as I can watch a film or documentary or a piece of art from them either visually or sonically, I am definitely equally interested in getting to know them as a person, which I’ve recently been doing in order to see ‘who am I’ towards these people I’d used to be ‘drawn’ to in an energetic form as an ‘attraction’ and how I see them currently through doing that self-work of identifying which words I see or perceive they are living and doing and take those words back to myself, to in a way nurture myself from their examples.

I’ve drawn inspiration from others many times even if they are not ‘self-honest’ examples, I draw the essence, the drive, the motivation they got to do, be and live something and see where and how I can live that in my reality at the moment, which has been quite an enjoyable process as well and that I had completely kind of shut myself down from doing because of, as I was sharing with a friend today, yes, being like ‘constipated’ in my reality lol, kind of holding on to a limited version of myself through a lot of rigid structures that I have been also slowly but surely taking apart within myself, which at the same time has opened up within me what I’m sharing here today.

Also something that opens up with inspiration and ‘being inspired’ from others is gratefulness or gratitude in what these people express and live, which I definitely would not see or regard before. This at the same time goes hand in hand with changing my approach or moving from ‘comparison’ or an idea or perception of ‘lack’ within me into a point of creating for myself that which I see in others and test it out within this consideration of how every other being is in fact another aspect/expression of ourselves, so this is more of a process of embracing and integrating something within ourselves as part of that recognition of being in fact equals, made of the same, coming from the same – yet in unique individual expressions.

So, inspiration also leads me to see the word in one of its meanings which is ‘inhalation’ which is both a literal taking a breath to make a decision to ‘integrate’ certain expressions, words that I see others are living – and at the same time giving it back, just like exhaling, where whatever I take or ‘be inspired by’ does not only remain as some kind of ‘hoarding’ for myself and invested into an ego-building process, but also give back as much as I have taken or received from others – directly or indirectly – to support me, to express me and share myself back which activates the possibility of others being inspired by what I decide to share and express and so others can eventually do the same in their lives towards others, and so the chain of ‘moving it forward’ expands, which is the ultimate goal in this, nothing is only for personal benefit, but always within the context of how I can learn how to expand myself so that I can share how I’ve done it and others may do it in their lives as well.

So, it’s interesting how then there’s a two way process to being ‘inspired’ where inevitably as with taking a breath or inhaling, we cannot just hold that breath forever ‘in’, what comes next is a natural movement of exhalation, a ‘giving back’ process so that the cycle may continue. That’s the natural expression of our physical body which means, I have to keep in mind doing this so that we can expand and not ‘hoard’ only these things to myself and I’ve been considering this a lot in how every time I get inspired by various people and their creations, I say to myself how I definitely want to do the same, be the same source of inspiration for others as well, because I see how relevant it is to keep being examples for each other in many ways, aspects, things of expertise, because that’s how we go kind of pushing the envelope for ourselves a little bit more at a time, which is great! And that’s also how I’ve come to be more and more grateful for people’s creations, people’s existence which I had completely and utterly taken for granted before in my delusional egoism.

Is doing all of this process worthwhile or enjoyable? Absolutely, I had not been aware of how limited I was by thinking that I could only ‘draw’ inspiration from others or through a particular substance or company, or a particular environment only, etc. We all ‘got it’, it’s a matter of deciding to act on it, to decide to open up the door and walk all the way through it, it’s about deciding to make that connection or ‘approach’ towards others, to be intrigued by the way others live and express and see what I can take from them that can benefit me in my life and consequently that of others.

This definitely expands the ability to be ‘inspired’ by virtually anything and everyone in day to day living, because it’s really about how we decide to see things, people, situations, the environment, reality… and so, this is what I’m busy developing and learning to live within me.

Lastly, please check out this awesome video by Sunette as well Why Don't You Feel Inspired? Which assisted me in being able to ground this post and point for me as well today which is a word that I have been looking at lately and today is the day to land it back to self and share it.